Mary-Dell Chilton

Mary-Dell Chilton (left) with US Deputy Agriculture Secretary Krysta Harden

Mary-Dell Matchett Chilton (born February 2, 1939 in Indianapolis ) is an American microbiologist and geneticist . She is considered a pioneer of green genetic engineering .

Chilton earned her bachelor's degree and her Ph.D. in 1967. in chemistry from the University of Illinois . She initially worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington and later moved to Washington University in St. Louis , where she accepted a faculty position in 1979. In 1983 she went to the agricultural division of Ciba-Geigy , where she took over the management of the scientific field of biotechnology. From this in 2000 the agricultural group Syngenta developed . At Syngenta, Chilton still works as a scientific consultant today (as of 2017).

Chilton was able to show that the bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens brings about a gene transfer into plant cells. Using this T-DNA, genes can be artificially transferred between prokaryotes and eukaryotes . Chilton developed crops with improved soil yield or increased stress tolerance , for example against pests or drought . Chilton's fields of work are plant genetic engineering, the improvement of crops , biological pest control , gene transfer using Agrobacterium tumefaciens and Agrobacterium rhizogenes and using vectors . Further work deals with the chromatin structure and core / core / matrix attachment regions .

Awards (selection)

• 1985 member of the National Academy of Sciences
• 1993 member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 2002 Benjamin Franklin Medal from the Franklin Institute
• 2013 World Food Prize
• 2015 Member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame

Web links

Commons : Mary-Dell Chilton  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Mary-Dell Chilton: The Queen of Agrobacterium and Mary-Dell Chilton, Distinguished Science Fellow at Syngenta (syngenta-us.com)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Mary-Dell Chilton. In: nasonline.org. Retrieved October 22, 2017 . 
2. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present, Chapter C. (PDF; 1.3 MB) In: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org). Retrieved October 22, 2017 (English). 
3. ^ Mary-Dell Chilton. In: fi.edu. January 16, 2015, accessed October 22, 2017 . 
4. ↑ 2013 - Van Montagu, Chilton, Fraley at worldfoodprize.org; accessed on October 22, 2017.
5. ↑ Inductee Detail - National Inventors Hall of Fame. In: invent.org. July 25, 2016, accessed October 22, 2017 .