Volume 2,Issue 2 Spring 2000

Inside this issue:

	Beachy Joins Delegation of Scientists for Clinton's Trip to India
	Nidus Center Holds Grand Opening
	The International Laboratory for Tropical Agricultural Biotechnology
	Board of Directors
	Building Progress
	Grants Received
	Awards and Events

Beachy Joins Delegation of Scientists for Clinton's Trip to India

Danforth Center president, Dr. Roger N. Beachy, joined a delegation of scientists participating in President Clinton’s recent diplomatic visit to India. Dr. Beachy spoke at a round-table discussion held in Hyderabad, India on March 24, 2000. Led on the U.S. side by Dr. Neal Lane, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and on the Indian side by Professor V.S. Ramamurthy, Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology, the round table established direction for the newly created Indo-U.S. Science Forum. This organization will be responsible for identifying areas for mutual cooperation in science and technology. Beachy joined twenty-nine other prominent American and Indian scientists at the forum discussion and outlined the agricultural advances resulting from research in biotechnology. “With international financial and political support, an integrated decision-making process, and recognition of the obligation to listen to and inform the public,” Beachy explained, “the scientific community can ensure that technological progress will be directed toward agricultural improvements that are of value to all.” Also taking part on the U.S. side of the forum was Dr. Rita Colwell, director of the National Science Foundation.

(l to r) Neal Lane; Rita Colwell; Roger Beachy; Wendy Hall; Gerald Hane

Nidus Center Holds Grand Opening

The Nidus Center for Scientific Enterprise, the region’s first business incubator to focus exclusively on the life science industry, celebrated its grand opening April 19. Located on the Monsanto campus in Creve Coeur, the Nidus Center is designed to bring new discoveries and technologies to market as part of an ongoing initiative to attract scientists and promote biotechnology, agriculture, health, and nutrition businesses in the St. Louis region. President and CEO of the Nidus Center, Robert J. Calcaterra asserted, “We look forward to providing new companies with resources that are unique to the region--including access to leading universities, key industry leaders, and emerging technologies.” According to a national incubator expert, St. Louis is an ideal location for entrepreneurs looking for assistance in starting new businesses. The Nidus Center is expected to generate more than $1.5 billion for the St. Louis regional economy over the next 15 years. The Center will collaborate with a variety of partners, including the Danforth Center. The 41,000 square-foot “green building” recently received the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design award from the U.S. Green Building Council. The facility uses only 65 % of the energy normally consumed for a building its size.

(l to r) Robert Calcaterra, Nidus President and CEO, Missouri Senator Kit Bond, and David Broughton, Nidus Executive Vice President and COO

The International Laboratory for Tropical Agricultural Biotechnology

Claude Fauquet, Ph.D., Director

Previous issues of the Leaflet introduced the Danforth Center's principal investigators. In this issue, we give you a closer look at Dr. Fauquet and his research group.

Claude Fauquet (second from right) and members of the research team at the International Laboratory for Tropical Agricultural Biotechnology.	The greenhouses used by the International Laboratory for Tropical Agricultural Biotechnology (ILTAB) have something you don’t see in most greenhouses--rows of exotic-looking tropical cassava plants. Cassava, nearly unknown in the United States, is the staple food crop for nearly 500 million people in developing countries. The eight-foot tall plants with their fans of dark leaves attest to the unique mission of ILTAB. ILTAB is dedicated to using advances in biotechnology to provide the scientists and farmers of lesser developed countries with the capacity to improve local crops. ILTAB has been at the forefront of the development of improved varieties of major tropical crops, such as rice and cassava. The research group was founded in 1991 by Dr. Roger Beachy and Dr. Claude Fauquet and is now directed by Dr. Fauquet. Since moving to the Danforth Center in 1999, ILTAB has developed a comprehensive program to benefit tropical agriculture.
Its approach recognizes the worldwide importance of the tropical regions: they hold 90% of the world’s biodiversity, and in the next decades, 90% of the world’s population growth will occur in the tropics. Firmly committed to addressing the food needs of the expanding population while maintaining environmental stability, Fauquet believes that the scientific community of the developed world must engage with lesser developed countries. They must assure that progress from scientific research is widely available. “The developed world has the knowledge, the money, and the technology,” Fauquet asserts. “It is up to us to see that the rest of the world shares these advantages.” ILTAB researchers work to increase crop yield by developing crop plants that resist diseases and insects and that tolerate harsh conditions such as cold, drought, or poor soils. But, the challenge for supplying adequate nutrition is not only a matter of food quantity but also of quality. Millions of people in the lesser developed countries suffer from malnutrition. The scientists of ILTAB work also to improve food quality by increasing the vitamin, mineral, starch, and protein content of food plants. Genetic transformation, the process of moving useful genes into plants, is a vital component of ILTAB’s research program. ILTAB scientists have pioneered methods for the transformation of cassava and rice and developed a protocol for the very difficult process of integrating multiple genes into a plant. This progress sets the stage for rapid advances in improving a wide range of cultivars for a variety of traits and allows researchers to adapt their techniques to other crops.		Rice plantlets in a growth medium. The plants demonstrate ILTAB’s success in integrating multiple genes into a plant.
Using transformation technologies, plants can be given the ability to resist disease. On the right are cassava leaves from a plant infected with a virus disease. On the left are leaves from a plant that has a gene that allows it to remain healthy even when exposed to a virus.	Studies of plant virus disease make up a large part of ILTAB research. Harmful plant viruses are very prevalent in the tropics because of the absence of a cold winter season, and they regularly cause huge crop losses. Improvement of tropical crops requires the development of plants that can resist virus infections. Fauquet is a leading expert in the taxonomy and biology of geminiviruses, one of the largest group of plant viruses of the tropics. He and coworkers are developing a cassava cultivar that is resistant to a common strain of virus in Africa, and they continue investigation into techniques to increase virus resistance. In addition, they study host-virus interactions for clues to controlling the viruses and have developed diagnostic kits that aid scientists in studying the vast array of tropical plant geminiviruses. ILTAB has begun a program of seeking useful genes for agricultural improvement. As genome projects around the world accumulate data describing plant genes, genes for specialized traits such as drought tolerance are being discovered. Once located, these genes can be moved into crop plants that are important for the people of developing countries. ILTAB is committed to making use of valuable genes to ensure the next generation a better future. To effectively share new scientific knowledge, ILTAB trains scientists from tropical countries and maintains continuing international cooperation through its Global BioNet. Since its inception, ILTAB has trained 135 scientists from 19 countries in molecular virology and plant transformation techniques. Its network links scientists in developing countries to better funded laboratories in the developed world.

Continuing Feature: The Board of Directors of the Danforth Center

The Danforth Center’s board of directors is responsible for defining and supporting the Center’s mission and ensuring that the organization operates effectively. The board includes individuals with corporate, academic, and scientific backgrounds.

Michael Aiken Michael Aiken became chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in July of 1993. Before becoming chief executive officer of the UIUC campus, Dr. Aiken was provost of the University of Pennsylvania – the chief academic officer of the Ivy League school, where he previously had served as chair of the sociology department and dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. A widely published sociologist, Dr. Aiken has specialized in organizational behavior, with a focus on analysis of change in complex organizations. He has been active in professional organizations including the Midwest Sociological Society, American Sociological Association, International Sociological Association, and the Council for European Studies. Apart from his nine years at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Aiken’s academic career has been in public universities: he is a graduate of the University of Mississippi, received his doctorate from the University of Michigan, and served on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin at Madison for more than 21 years.

Alfonso Romo Garza Alfonso Romo Garza was born in Mexico City, Mexico. He is a graduate of the Institute Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, where he received a degree in agricultural engineering. Sr. Romo founded Pulsar International in 1981. Pulsar operates in the agricultural biotechnology and packaging sector, in the non-banking financial services sector, and in the construction, distribution, and information technology sectors. Through Fomento Cultural y Educativo Pulsar, Sr. Romo supports a series of educational, cultural, and ecological activities, such as Duxx, the Graduate School of Business Leadership, and the ARA organization which is devoted to the protection of endangered birds. Pulsar is also actively involved in the conservation of the Lacandona rain forest and sponsors the Gran Premio Nacional de Arte Popular (National Folk Art Grand Prix Award) as well as the Concurso Nacional de Arte Joven competition. Since 1994, Sr. Romo has been implementing an association program for small landowner- farmers and private investors, which has contributed to the farmer’s social and economic well being. Sr. Romo is a member of the World Bank’s External Advisory Board for Latin America and the Caribbean and is currently on the board of directors of select renowned national and international companies.

Building Progress

April 14, 2000: The above photo shows the concrete subfloor of the lower level of the new facility. In the center of the structure, the foundation of the Center’s auditorium is visible	May 24, 2000: This photo shows the concrete subfloor of the first or street level of the new facility. All floors and the outer walls of the building are expected to be completed by the end of the year, and work will then progress in the interior portion of the building.

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Grants Received

Facility: • Greenhouse Project Block Grant, $1,500,000 --U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Roger Beachy’s Research Laboratory: • Regulating Expression of Cell and Tissue-Specific Genes by Modifying Transcription, $312,000 for 3 years--Department of Energy • Developing a Strategy to Express Multiple Genes Using Gene Switch Technologies, $306,000 for 2 years--Rohm & Haas Company Jeffrey Skolnick: Laboratory of Computational Genomics: • A Novel Bioinformatics Approach to the Prediction of Protein Function Using the Sequence to Structure to Function Paradigm, $1,200,000 for 4 years--GeneFormatics Inc. • Interaction Pattern Based Predictor of Protein Structure, $270,000 for 2 years--National Institutes of Health • Computer Simulation Theory, $833,000 for 4 years--National Institutes of Health • Quaternary Structure and Folding Thermodynamics of Multimeric Helical Proteins, $488,000 for 5 years--National Science Foundation • Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Research Scholars, $3,500 for 1 year Claude Fauquet: International Laboratory for Tropical Agricultural Biotechnology: • Specialized Research and Development Training, $211,000 for 2 years--Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Co. Ltd.

Awards and Events

The St. Louis County Economic Council presented Dr. Roger Beachy with the William D. Phillips Technology Advancement Award for “his considerable efforts to attract top scientists from around the world and position St. Louis as the world’s center for plant science research and its commercial application.” Dr. Andrzej Kolinski, Member of the Laboratory of Computational Genomics at the Danforth Center and Director of the Laboratory of Theory of Biopolymers at the University of Warsaw, Poland, has received the title of Professorship from the President of the Republic of Poland. The title is a great honor, given to only about 10% of professors appointed at Polish Universities and is awarded after a stringent review process. Members of the International Laboratory for Tropical Agricultural Biotechnology participated in the St. Louis Science Center’s Community Science Day on May 13. The Science Center organizes this event to give elementary students a chance to meet representatives from local scientific and educational institutions. ILTAB scientists were on hand to answer questions and talk about their research. In addition to learning about ILTAB, those who visited sampled cassava chips and were given a small cassava cutting to grow at home.

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:

Gwen Ericson