Mike Thomashow Assumes Presidency October 1

Mike Thomashow

Michael F. Thomashow became ASPB president October 1, 2005. He succeeds Roger Hangarter, who is now immediate past president.

“I am very much looking forward to the coming year,” Thomashow said. “As president-elect, I came to appreciate, more than I had in the past, how strong and vibrant our Society is due to the hard work and commitment of its membership in a variety of areas, ranging from education to outreach, to public affairs, scientific meetings and, of course, publication of our eminent scientific journals. I have also observed firsthand the excellence and dedication of the staff at ASPB headquarters who keep us on a steady course moving forward. These are exciting times for plant biology, filled with promise and opportunities. I look forward to my role in helping ASPB continue its vital roles in support of the plant biology community.”

Thomashow is a researcher in the Michigan State University–Department of Energy Plant Research Laboratory and faculty member in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences and the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at MSU. He earned A.B. (1972) and Ph.D. (1978) degrees in microbiology at UCLA and conducted postdoctoral research on Agrobacterium tumefaciens with Eugene Nester at the University of Washington, Seattle (1978–1980). He was an assistant and associate professor in the Department of Microbiology at Washington State University, Pullman (1981–1986) before moving to MSU. At MSU, he was an associate and then a full professor. In 2002, was named university distinguished professor.

Thomashow’s early research was directed toward understanding how Agrobacterium tumefaciens causes the formation of tumors on plants. As a Damon Runyon–Walter Winchell Cancer Fund Research fellow, he and coworkers demonstrated that the T-DNA is integrated into the nuclear genome, where the genes that it encodes are expressed. Further studies in his own lab established that the auxin-independent phenotype of crown gall tumors is due to the expression of two genes carried on the T-DNA that encode enzymes mediating the synthesis of auxin. Upon moving to MSU, Thomashow initiated a new line of research focusing on mechanisms of abiotic stress tolerance. He and his coworkers have described a small family of regulatory genes and their targets in Arabidopsis that make up the CBF cold response pathway, which is activated at low temperature and has a central role in cold acclimation and freezing tolerance.

Thomashow participates in teaching a graduate-level course in plant molecular biology, offers periodic “special topics” graduate courses on abiotic stress tolerance, and serves on graduate research thesis committees. His professional activities have included service on grant review panels for NSF, USDA–NRI, NIH, and NASA; the editorial boards of Plant Physiology (1988–1992, 1999–2005), Planta (1990–1994), CryoLetters (1995–1999), and Plant Molecular Biology (2001–2003, editorial advisory board); organizing committees for the Gordon Research Conference on Plant Temperature Stress (1995) and the Keystone Symposium on Plant Abiotic Stress (2004); the Promega Biotechnology Research Award nominating committee, American Academy of Microbiology (2002 to present); and the National Research Council, Polar Research Board Committee on Frontiers in Polar Biology (2002). He has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives, Science Subcommittee on Basic Research on the topic of “Plant Genome Science: From the Lab to the Field to the Market” (1999) and is currently director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute–led team studying microbial life at low temperature. Thomashow’s honors include the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Award (2001) and the MSU Distinguished Faculty Award (2002). He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology (2001) and an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (2003).