Dr. Bob Conger

Transcription

1 Dr. Bob Conger UT Austin Distinguished Professor Emeritus Ph.D., Washington State University, 1967 B.S., Colorado State University, 1963 SELECTED HONORS and AWARDS: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Predoctoral Traineeship ( ) Invitation to prepare feature article for 1984 McGraw-Hill Yearbook of Science and Technology University of Tennessee Chancellor's Research Scholar (1985) (1985) Fellow, American Society of Agronomy Fellow, Crop Science Society of America (1985) Austin Distinguished Professorship (1986) University of Tennessee Professional Leave Award ( ) IAEA Special Service Agreement ( ) Cavender Award for Best UTIA Publication-Research (1987) Gamma Sigma Delta Merit Award for Research, University of Tennessee (1989) University of Tennessee Career Enhancement Awards (1990) (1993) (1996) (2001) Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (1991) UTIA Excellence in Research and Creative Activities Award (2001) Lifetime Achievement Award, Society for In Vitro Biology (2006) Honored Alumni Award, Department Soil & Crop Sciences, Colorado State University (2006) Plant Variety Protection Patent from USDA for Persist orchardgrass (2007). Recognized by the UT Research Foundation with a plaque (2009)

2 PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS Membership at time of retirement: American Association for the Advancement of Science American Forage and Grassland Council American Society of Agronomy - Board of Directors ( ) *Crop Science Society of America - Board of Directors ( ) International Association for Plant Tissue Culture Sigma Xi *Society for In Vitro Biology * Indicates current emeritus membership EDITORIAL: Editor, "Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences" ( ) Associate Editor, "In Vitro Cellular and Development Biology-Plant" ( ) Editorial Board and Associate Editor "Environmental and Experimental Botany" ( ) Associate Editor, "Crop Science" (1986) Editorial Board International Agrophysics ( ) EXTRAMURAL FUNDING More than $2 million were awarded to the program from public and private sources including: National Soybean Crop Improvement Council ( ) USDA/Competitive Research Grants Office ( ) Monsanto Company ( ) CIBA-GEIGY Corp. ( ) International Atomic Energy Agency ( , 1987, ,1998)

3 Agracetus Corp. ( ) Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc. ( ) Pioneer Hi-Bred International (1991, ) National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( ) Lockheed Martin Energy Systems Inc. ( ) Metabolix Corp. ( ) INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE: Participation in international congresses, symposia, scientific meetings and collaborations in 27 countries. Selected examples include: Member of FAO/IAEA panel on "Improvement of Mutation Breeding Techniques," Vienna, Austria ( ). Sole U.S. participant (invited) in Symposium on Experimental Mutagenesis in Plants, Varna, Bulgaria (1976). Organizer and Chairman of Symposium on "Experimental Mutagenesis in Plants" at 6th International Congress of Radiation Research, Tokyo, Japan (1979). Scientific Program Committee and Chairman and Rapporteur of Plant Mutagenesis Sections for 7th International Congress of Radiation Research, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (1983). Conducted research at the IAEA Seibersdorf Laboratory supported by a UT 12 month Professional Leave Award and an IAEA Special Service Agreement ( ) Invited Lecturer, NATO-ASI, Albufeira, Portugal (1987) Invited speaker, EUCARPIA - Fodder Crops Section, Wageningen, Netherlands (1990) Invited speaker, Segundo Congreso Nacional De Biotecnologia De Plantas, Bogota, Colombia (1991) Chairman and Keynote Speaker - Symposium on In Vitro Culture and Plant Regeneration, VIII International Congress on Plant Tissue and Cell Culture, Florence, Italy (1994). Collaboration with Institute of Genetic Engineering, Sofia, Bulgaria resulted in three visiting International Scholars and two Ph.D. students in his program. In total, 13 visiting International Scholars (four served two stays or more) gained experience in his lab. These were supported fully or in part by governments of India and Bulgaria and by NSF, NATO and IAEA.

4 PUBLICATIONS: Major publications include 133 papers in refereed journals, book chapters, and proceedings of national and international congresses and symposia. Author-editor of a book Cloning Agricultural Plants via In Vitro Techniques (CRC Press, 1981) and coeditor of a symposium proceedings Propagation of Plants through Tissue Culture (Environ. Exp. Bot., 1981) Many of his publications are listed on the internet under Conger, B. V. or Conger, Bob V. TEACHING: Advanced Plant Genetics Special Topics in Plant Breeding and Genetics Graduate Student Seminar PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY SUMMARY Dr. Conger received his B.S. from Colorado State University in 1963 and his Ph.D. from Washington State University in 1967 where he was supported by a NASA Pre-doctoral Traineeship. He began his career at the UT-AEC Agricultural Research Laboratory (later Comparative Animal Research Laboratory) at Oak Ridge in 1968 and was an internationally known plant radiation biologist and mutation geneticist. He transferred to the UT campus in 1976 and initiated research in biotechnology. He developed and released (1990) an orchardgrass genotype 'Embryogen-P' that initiates and develops somatic embryos directly from mesophyll cells of leaf segments cultured on a solid medium and from single cells cultured in a liquid medium. These systems led the way in biotechnological advancements for the Poaceae family and his lab became an internationally recognized monocot tissue culture and transformation laboratory. With support of a Professional Leave Award from UT and an IAEA Special Service Agreement, he also spent a year ( ) in Vienna, Austria, conducting in vitro research with orchardgrass and corn in an IAEA laboratory. The Embryogen-P leaf culture system, with support from NASA, was used for experiments in 1994 and 1998 on the space shuttle Discovery. His lab was also the first to demonstrate genetic transformation in switchgrass, a biomass crop that is receiving much attention for the production of cellulosic ethanol. Transgenic plants were produced by both the particle bombardment

5 and Agrobacterium methods. Dr. Conger's success and dedication to his research are evident through the numerous publications from his research team. He was the editor and contributing author of the book "Cloning Agricultural Plants Via In Vitro Techniques," which has been widely cited by his peers. He was the first editor of the Journal Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences in 1981 and served through This journal was ranked as high as 4th in impact factor among 140 periodicals in plant sciences worldwide. Some of his numerous awards are listed above and include a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Plant Sciences Section of the Society for In Vitro Biology and an Honored Alumni Award from the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Colorado State University after his retirement. He developed a new orchardgrass cultivar 'Persist' that has been exclusively released and licensed to Smith Seed Services in Halsey, Oregon. He received a Plant Variety Protection Patent from the USDA in This was recognized with presentation of a plaque from the UT Research foundation in 2009.