presents
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Volume
1,Issue 1 Fall 1999 |
The Leaflet is a semiannual publication for partners, friends, and supporters of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
Inside our inaugural issue...
| Groundbreaking ceremony | |
| The building design | |
| Introducing the president | |
| First principal investigators | |
| Commentary on biotechnology |
Construction
of the facility for the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
officially began with a groundbreaking ceremony on August 2,
1999. The ceremony took place in an open-air tent on the site
of the new building in Creve Coeur, Missouri. The over 300 in
attendance were able to view the architects' model and take a
virtual reality tour of the building's interior.
William H. Danforth, chairman of the Danforth Center, opened the ceremony with a welcoming speech. "As we break ground today for a building," Danforth proclaimed, "we are also breaking ground on the realization of a dream." A dream made possible with the help of its supporters, including Monsanto, the Danforth Foundation, and the State of Missouri.
Dr. Danforth's remarks were followed by brief talks by Peter H. Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden; The Honorable Christopher S. Bond, U.S. Senator for Missouri; Rita R. Colwell, director of the National Science Foundation; and Roger N. Beachy, president of the Danforth Center. Also participating in the groundbreaking ceremony were Richard Wallace, Chancellor of the University of Missouri-Columbia; John Danforth, former senator from Missouri and chairman of the Danforth Foundation; and Dennis Roedemeier, director of Business Development for the Missouri Department of Economic Development.
On behalf of the Danforth Center, Dr. Raven expressed gratitude to the children of Donald Danforth for bestowing his name on the new research center. The Center "holds extraordinary promise for providing a hub of unparalleled activity with cutting-edge research in the basic plant sciences," Raven stated.
Senator Bond agreed, asserting that "many in the world will look to this team and this location for understanding and solving problems that were previously considered unsolvable."
Since plants serve as the basis for all human life, Dr. Colwell explained, "advances in plant science will be a major mechanism for improving the quality of life and the quality of food on the planet. The Danforth Center will be synonymous with that work."
Dr. Beachy declared that the Danforth Center will gather "scientists with exceptional skills and qualifications. We will strive to make the most of nature's biological diversity and to place an emphasis on developing knowledge that will benefit humankind around the world."
The
ceremony also provided an opportunity for Mark S. Wrighton, chancellor
of Washington University in St. Louis, to present the Science
Coalition's Langor Award to Senator Bond and to Missouri Congressman
Richard Gephardt. The Science Coalition, a group of more than
400 organizations, institutions, and individuals who provide
advocacy for scientific research, presented the award to Bond
and Gephardt in recognition of their unwavering support for basic
research in plant science. 
| The groundbreaking: (l to r) Richard Wallace, John Danforth, Dennis Roedemeier, Roger Beachy, William Danforth, Rita Colwell, Senator Christopher Bond, Peter Raven, Mark Wrighton. |
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Architectural rendering of the west elevation of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, as designed by Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners |
The founders of the Danforth Center knew that the quality of the facility would be a key to the Center's success. A well-designed building would help attract the world's best scientists and foster the best science possible. In addition, it would be an asset to the community, blending pleasantly with its surroundings and contributing to environmental responsibility.
The Center's founding partners held a design competition to seek architects capable of creating a facility that was imaginative in its design and efficient to maintain. The architects selected are Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners of London, England and Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum of St. Louis.
The architectural rendering above illustrates some of the features that will make the facility effective. Shown is a cut-away rendering of the west elevation. If you imagine walking in the front entrance (to the far right), you would pass under the "pod," a two-story, self-contained unit at the southern end of the atrium. This central and highly visible pod will contain the library and meeting rooms, important components for facilitating collaborative research.
Walking farther into the atrium, you would see all three floors of the research wings to either side. The research wings, containing the laboratory spaces of the scientific investigators, will run parallel to each other lengthwise, and the effect of their connection to the open space of the atrium is to encourage movement and communication. The research wings will be linked across the atrium by walkways, bridges, and meeting platforms.
Beneath
the floor of the atrium will be a fully-equipped lecture auditorium
with teleconferenc
ing capabilities that will connect the Center's scientists to
partner institutions and other plant science research facilities
worldwide. Behind the northern end of the auditorium will be
extensive areas of specialized growth chambers and greenhouses
for maintaining the plants needed for research.
The laboratories (not shown in rendering) are designed to be flexible, allowing them to change as the developing research demands. And while the entire facility is meant to be conducive to scientific work, including state-of-the-art equipment and instrumentation, that does not mean it will appear forbiddingly technical. Built into the overall concept are ample "people-friendly" features. The facility is designed to be welcoming, both to those who work there and to visitors; it will make use of naturalistic textures and surfaces and will contain many comfortable areas for people to gather casually or to relax in solitude.
In
line with the Danforth Center's philosophy of environmental sustainability,
the architects have chosen to maximize the use of materials,
such as wood, that use less energy to produce. A system of louvers
and reflective materials control the flow of air and the amount
of energy from the sun, maintaining the building's internal atmosphere.
| A photo of the front of the architects' model of the facility for the Danforth Center. This side of the building will face south, toward Olive Boulevard. Visible are the building's open-air facade, the two-story library/meeting-room pod in the middle, and the front walls of the two research wings. |
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Increase understanding
of basic plant biology Apply new knowledge
to help sustain productivity in agriculture, forestry, and allied
fields Facilitate the rapid
development and commercialization of promising technologies and
products Contribute to the education
and training of graduate and postdoctoral students, scientists,
and technicians from around the world |
President of the Danforth Center
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Roger N. Beachy, Ph.D. assumed the position of president of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center on January 1, 1999. Dr. Beachy is internationally known for his work on virus-resistant plants; he was first to discover how to effectively insert a gene for virus resistance into a plant. Prior to his appointment at the Danforth Center, Beachy was director of the Division of Plant Biology at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. There he also co-directed the International Laboratory for Tropical Agricultural Biotechnology (see below for more on ILTAB). Before his work at The Scripps Institute, Beachy was on the faculty at Washington University's Department of Biology and head of the Center for Plant Science and Biotechnology. Dr.
Beachy received his Ph.D. in plant pathology from Michigan State
University. He has edited or contributed to more than 50 book
articles and produced over 160 journal publications. Active in
the scientific community, Beachy has served on numerous boards
and committees. He is an active member of several scientific
societies and in 1997 was elected to membership in the U.S. National
Academy of Sciences. |
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FROM THE PRESIDENT: In this inaugural issue of what will be a regular report to our friends and colleagues, you will learn what has taken place during the past ten months at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. It has been a busy time, filled with challenges in setting policies and scientific direction, while establishing the administrative infrastructure for the Center. I am privileged to have an excellent group of energetic and talented people with whom to work, many of whom you will get to know in upcoming newsletters and through personal contacts. As a team we are committed to bringing the Danforth Center to the forefront in research and outreach and to doing so in a manner that ensures the Center's fiscal longevity. The Center will be, in many ways, unique among research centers in the world; uniqueness brings challenges for recruiting the scientific staff and for establishing the Center in the community and enlisting friends to support its mission. We welcome your involvement and encourage you to communicate with us electronically through our website or by more traditional methods. Our success will depend upon how well we execute our scientific mission and how well we communicate with you. Through the newsletter we will initiate and expand the dialog. Welcome to the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center!
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Two Principal Investigators Named
In June of this year, the Danforth Center hired the first two of its projected twenty principal investigators. They are Claude Fauquet, Ph.D. and Jeffrey Skolnick, Ph.D.; both come from The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California and both have previously taught at Washington University in St. Louis. "The appointments of Dr. Skolnick and Dr. Fauquet are key to establishing the level of scientific excellence that will characterize the Danforth Center," said Beachy. "Furthermore, their research interests and expertise are an integral part of our goal that the Danforth Center will encourage multidisciplinary, team-based approaches to the solution of exciting and relevant research problems."
Dr.
Claude Fauquet is a leading expert on virus taxonomy and on the
biological diversity and control of plant viruses. He will lead
a laboratory program at the Danforth Center known as the International
Laboratory for Tropical
Agricultural Biotechnology (ILTAB). ILTAB is dedicated to
helping developing countries improve their agricultural production
in a sustainable manner. It does so by training young scientists
from these countries, transferring modern technologies in plant
biology and biotechnology, and providing useful research tools.
Dr. Jeffrey Skolnick, a renowned computational biologist and informatics specialist, is the director of Computational and Structural Biology at the Danforth Center. His field of research makes use of powerful computing tools to predict the structure of proteins, a method that provides clues to a protein's biological function. Combined with the expanding genome research, Skolnick's techniques allow rapid accumulation of knowledge of plant characteristics and promise advances that can lead to disease-resistant plants and better crop yields.
Dr. Fauquet obtained his academic degrees from the University Louis Pasteur of Strasbourg. Prior to co-founding the ILTAB program at The Scripps Institute with Dr. Beachy in 1991, Fauquet worked for nineteen years as a plant virologist for ORSTOM (now IRD), a French public research institute dedicated to helping developing countries. For fourteen of those years, Fauquet was stationed at a French research center in the Ivory Coast.
Dr.
Skolnick received his Ph.D. in polymer statistical mechanics
from Yale University. He was a member of the Department of Chemistry
faculty at Washington University from 1982-89, after which he
moved to the Department of Molecular Biology at The Scripps Institute.
Beachy
Discusses Biotechnology
Dr.
Beachy recently contributed a commentary published in the July 16th
issue of Science magazine, an issue devoted to developments
in plant biotechnology. As he notes, U.S. farmers have profited
greatly from discoveries made in the scientific laboratory: new
plant varieties increase crop yield and quality while reducing
dependence on expensive and potentially harmful chemicals. In
addition, the crop varieties resulting from biotechnology have
been extensively tested and approved by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Food
and Drug Administration.
Yet,
in spite of the many benefits and proven safety of plant biotechnology,
concern over its use has developed, first in Europe and recently
in the United States. As president of the Danforth Center, Beachy
is in a position to correct misconceptions and provide leadership
to the scientific community as scientists communicate their research
to the public. "It is important," Beachy asserts, "for
scientists to realize that times have changed and to engage in
dialogue with the public rather than retreat from it." Effective
communication can assure people that research is done with safety
always in mind and with an eye toward providing products and
techniques of genuine benefit.
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Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
7425 Forsyth Boulevard, Box 1098
St. Louis, MO 63105 USA
Phone: 314.935.9852
Fax: 314.935.8605
Editors: Derek Montgomery Jan Druyvesteyn Managing Editor & Writer: Gwen Ericson