PRESIDENT'S LETTER

Sally Assmann

Thanksgiving and Giving Thanks

Although this article is slated for the January/February 2009 issue of the ASPB News, which means you will be reading it after the winter holidays, as I write it is just a few days since the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving. Traditionally, although not entirely accurately, the first Thanksgiving in the New World is said to have occurred at Plimoth Plantation in New England in 1621. The celebration lasted for three days and included both Native Americans and English colonists. Despite this U.S.-centric focus, Thanksgiving is similar to many celebrations around the world in that it is a harvest festival. So, for the newsletter of a professional society in plant biology, Thanksgiving could be an appropriate lead-in to topics such as crop biodiversity, or agroecosystems, or even (in parallel with the privations faced by the early colonists), a discussion of current global food shortages. However, another focus of Thanksgiving is on “giving thanks,” and that is the focus I would like to emphasize in this article. Specifically, I would argue that it is both appropriate and important to “give thanks” to the community of plant biologists that sustains our field, and that one way to do so is to nominate individuals for ASPB awards, during the open period for nominations, which runs from January 2 through February 27, 2009.

A click on the “awards” link at the ASPB homepage (www.aspb.org) reveals 15 different ASPB awards, with a diversity of emphases. Many of the awards are not limited to members of ASPB. Please note, though, that not all of these awards are made every year; a listing of the awards that will be made in 2009 can be found in the November/December 2008 issue of the newsletter.

Several of the ASPB awards are to recognize individuals who have made outstanding research contributions to the field of plant biology. The names of many of these awards read like a partial who’s who of plant biology: the Stephen Hales Prize, the Dennis Robert Hoagland Award, the Charles Reid Barnes Life Membership Award, the Charles Albert Shull Award, the Charles F. Kettering Award for Excellence in Photosynthesis, the Martin Gibbs Medal, and the Lawrence Bogorad Award for Excellence in Plant Biology.

Just in case you are a little fuzzy on the history of science, here are some tidbits on the people behind these names. The Reverend Stephen Hales is recognized as one of the founders of the field of plant physiology with his publication in 1727 of the text Vegetable Staticks. The first recipient of the Stephen Hales Prize was Dr. Dennis R. Hoagland, a UC Berkeley faculty member from 1927 to 1949 and a pioneer in the field of plant mineral nutrition. Hoagland’s name remains immortalized in “Hoagland’s solution,” a complete nutritive solution for plant growth that is still routinely used. Ironically, according to Wikipedia (that source of all knowledge!), Hoagland initiated research into plant mineral nutrition to debunk exaggerated claims regarding the value of hydroponics made by Dr. William Frederick Gericke, also a professor at UC Berkeley and author of the book Complete Guide to Soilless Gardening.

The Charles Reid Barnes Life Membership Award is actually the first award that was established by ASPB, at its initial annual meeting in 1925. The award is given in honor of Dr. Charles Reid Barnes (1858–1910), who was a noted bryologist, the first professor of plant physiology at the University of Chicago, and the author of textbooks such as Outlines of Plant Life, with Special Reference to Form and Function (1900) and Handbook of Plant Morphology: Being the Handbook of Plant Dissection (1904).

Dr. Charles Albert Shull (1879–1962) was also a plant physiologist at the University of Chicago. Shull had seven siblings, two of whom also became life science professors: George Shull was a professor of botany and genetics at Princeton, and Aaron Shull was a professor of zoology at the University of Michigan. Charles Shull was the first president of ASPB (then ASPP, the American Society of Plant Physiologists) and also was the first editor in chief of Plant Physiology, from 1925 to 1945. The words of Dr. Shull in the foreword to the first issue of Plant Physiology seem as relevant today as they were more than 80 years ago: “Research in plant physiology must proceed in two general directions. It must continue to spread out into the practical fields of human service, such as agriculture, horticulture, agronomy, ecology, pathology, forestry, climatology, and medicine. At the same time it must constantly delve more deeply into the problems of developmental metabolism under the leadership of physiologists well trained in the methods of biophysics and biochemistry.”

Like Charles Shull, Charles F. Kettering (1876–1958) was also a midwestern farm boy, which probably influenced his interests in photosynthesis. He founded and led a photosynthesis laboratory at Antioch College, where he worked with plant physiologists, physicists, and chemists to demonstrate the existence of different forms of chlorophyll, a research topic later expanded by C. Stacy French at the Carnegie Institution of Washington at Stanford. However, Kettering was truly a Renaissance man. After his wife succumbed to cancer, he developed equipment to produce X-rays, in order to test whether radiation treatment could be used as an effective therapy against cancer. Kettering helped found the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, recognized today as one of the premier centers for oncology research and treatment worldwide.

If you Google Charles F. Kettering, yet more evidence of his multifaceted talents surfaces. Kettering worked for General Motors as vice president for research for many years and was responsible for many innovations in the auto industry, including invention of the self starter and leaded gasoline. Perhaps we should acknowledge Kettering and his research as early harbingers of the biofuels era: one article on Kettering (Vernon, 2003) states, “In addition to his interest in growth of corn, he was amazed that plants could capture the energy from the sun and this energy would be expressed in the gasoline used in autos.” In a brief biography of Kettering, Dr. Bill Kovarik (1999) writes, “they [Kettering and his GM associates, Thomas Midgley and T. A. Boyd] became interested in work on cellulose hydrolysis being performed by Harold Hibbert at Yale University. Hibbert pointed out that the 1920 USGS oil reserve report had serious implications for his work. ‘Does the average citizen understand what this means?’ he asked. ‘In from 10 to 20 years this country will be dependent entirely upon outside sources for a supply of liquid fuels…paying out vast sums yearly in order to obtain supplies of crude oil from Mexico, Russia and Persia.’ But chemists might be able to solve the problem, Hibbert said, by working on abundant cellulose waste from farm crops, timber operations and sea-weed.” The article then quotes a statement from Boyd that cellulose is “readily available, it is easily produced and its supply is renewable.” The interests of Kettering and his colleagues now seem eerily prophetic.

In more recent times, Dr. Martin (Marty) Gibbs (1922–2006) and Dr. Lawrence (Laurie) Bogorad (1921–2003) continued the tradition of Kettering in pioneering new discoveries in photosynthesis. Both researchers also played pivotal roles in journal editorship: Dr. Gibbs as editor of Plant Physiology for more than 30 years and Dr. Bogorad as chair of the editorial board of the U.S. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences from 1991 to 1995.

Although we may now look back at all of these individuals as “larger than life,” it is certainly the case that plant biology has equally accomplished scientists today who would be worthy recipients of the awards that bear the names of these illustrious predecessors. But no one can receive an award if they are not nominated! For the simple nomination procedure, click on this link: http://www.aspb.org/awards/nominate.cfm. ASPB also has several awards that are not “named” but are no less important. Some of these awards are given to individuals fitting certain demographic profiles, such as the Early Career Award, made to individuals fewer than 5 years post-PhD, and the Corresponding Member award, which recognizes distinguished non-U.S. plant biologists. The Society is grateful to Pioneer Hi-Bred International for its generosity, especially given the current economic climate, in continuing to fund the ASPB–Pioneer Hi-Bred International Graduate Student Prize. (Because it’s possible to parse this award name incorrectly, please note that this is not a prize restricted to international graduate students; rather, it is a prize funded by Pioneer Hi-Bred International for outstanding graduate student members of ASPB who are pursuing graduate study in plant biology at a U.S. institution.) And please don’t forget to consider the ASPB SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships; http://www.aspb.org/education/undergrad.cfm) awards to undergraduates, which provide funding toward the student’s stipend and lab supplies, as well as travel funds toward attendance of the student at the next ASPB meeting (Plant Biology 2010 in Montreal).

The newest ASPB award is the “Fellow of ASPB” award. Initially proposed by Dr. Nick Carpita and approved by the ASPB Executive Committee in 2007, it recognizes individuals who are not only accomplished plant biologists, but also have given generously of their time in supporting the missions of ASPB. Such service can take many forms, including service as editorial board members; service as ASPB officers or committee members; service as organizers of ASPB meetings, symposia, and workshops; and the like.

Finally, if you would like to “give thanks” to a particular mentor whose teaching has inspired you, or to a plant biologist who has made outstanding contributions to pedagogy or curricular development, consider nominating that individual for ASPB’s Excellence in Teaching Award (the award is not given this year, so please make a note to remember this for 2010!). The most recent winner of this award, Dr. Roger Hangarter, is well known to many of us for his development (with artist Dennis DeHart) of the award-winning art installation about plant biology, sLowlife, as well as for his innovative website “Plants in Motion” (http://plantsinmotion.bio.indiana.edu/plantmotion/starthere.html), which I, and I’m sure many of you as well, link to in classes to get undergraduates excited about plant biology.

So, in conclusion, please take a good look at the article “Call for 2009 ASPB Award Nominations” and follow the instructions to nominate the Haleses, Barneses, Shulls, and Ketterings of the present day (who, in one fortunate change from the past, are not only white males, but also women and people of color). And…thanks!

Sally Assmann
sma3@psu.edu
November 10, 2008

Sources of information for this article:

Forde, B. G., Harper, J. F., and Kochian, L. (2004). Focus on plant nutrition. Plant Physiology 136:2437.

Kovarik, B. (1999). Charles F. Kettering and the 1921 discovery of tetraethyl lead in the context of technological alternatives. www.runet.edu/~wkovarik/papers/kettering.html.

Loomis, W. E., and Hartt, C. E. (1964). Charles A. Shull. Plant Physiology 39:137–8.

Plimoth Plantation: www.plimoth.org.

Shull, C. A. (1926). Foreword. Plant Physiology 1:1.

Vernon, L. P. (2003). Photosynthesis and the Charles F. Kettering Research laboratory. Photosynthesis Research 76:379–88.