Central Institute for Genetics and Crop Plant Research
The Central Institute for Genetics and Crop Plant Research , until 1969 Institute for Crop Plant Research , was a non-university research institute that existed from 1945 to 1991 and, as an academy institute, belonged to the Research Association of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR (AdW). It was based in Gatersleben , at that time in the Magdeburg district of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and since 1990 in the state of Saxony-Anhalt . Founding director was the geneticist and breeding researcher Hans Stubbe , who headed the institute until his retirement in 1969. The main task of the institute was biochemical , molecular biological and genetic research on cultivated plants ; the institute also operated a seed library (gene bank) for corresponding plant varieties that has existed to the present day . Today's Leibniz Institute for Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research was established as a successor institution after German reunification .
history
Organizational development
The Central Institute for Genetics and Crop Plant Research was founded in Gatersleben in 1945 under the name "Institute for Crop Plant Research" and was the successor to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Crop Plant Research, which had been founded in Vienna-Tuttenhof during the Second World War . After its reopening, it was initially affiliated with the University of Halle-Wittenberg and in 1948 it was assigned as an academy institute to the Research Foundation of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin, from which the Academy of Sciences of the GDR (AdW) emerged in 1972 .
In the 1950s, under the direction of Hans Stubbe, the institute's staff made important contributions to refuting the scientifically untenable views of the Soviet biologist Trofim Denisovich Lyssenko on the inheritance of acquired traits. This contributed to the fact that Lyssenkoism in the GDR did not have any serious personal or material consequences and, unlike in the Soviet Union, did not lead to a standstill in the biological sciences. From 1953 the institute published the journal “Die Kulturpflanze”. From 1971 it belonged to the Research Center for Molecular Biology and Medicine of the AdW, the amalgamation of the bioscientific and medically oriented institutes of the Academy, and took on a coordinating role within this group.
In 1982, there were departments or laboratories for bacterial genetics, cytogenetics , gene action, Somatic Cell Genetics , developmental biology of mammals , protein metabolism, mutants metabolism, yield formation, Mathematics and Physical methods, serology , applied genetics, taxonomy and evolution , and cell and tissue culture. In addition, there was a mutagenicity test laboratory, an isotope laboratory, a working group for electron microscopy , a department for information and documentation with a library and the genebank for cultivated plants as an independent department.
Tasks and activities
The main task of the Central Institute for Genetics and Crop Plant Research was exploration , breeding and basic research on crop plants in the areas of genetics , cytology , phylogenesis and taxonomy as well as biophysics and biochemistry . Research focused on the Mutagenitätsforschung that genetic transformation in higher plants, the cloning and functional characterization of genes , the use of methods of cell and tissue culture for plant breeding as well as the study of biochemical, molecular and genetic basis of photosynthesis in crops and the regulation of biosynthesis selected proteins . Other activities related to the development of a seed library (gene bank) for cultivated plants as well as aspects of human genetics and the breeding of animals . In 1989 the institute had around 500 employees, including 95 scientists.
Directors
The director of the institute from its founding until 1969 was the geneticist and breeding researcher Hans Stubbe . The transformation to the Central Institute for Genetics and Crop Plant Research took place in December 1969 with the appointment of Helmut Böhme as Stubbe's successor, and Dieter Mettin took over the management in 1983 . After the political change in the GDR , Klaus Müntz became director of the institute in early May 1990 , which was renamed the "Institute for Genetics and Cultivated Plant Research" in the same year.
Successor organization
Successor to the Central Institute for Genetics and Crop Plant Research after the reunification treaty agreed resolution of the Academy of Sciences Institutes at the end of 1991, the newly founded January 1992 'Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research "as a body of Blue List , in 2006 the name of Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and crop plant research and, among other things, continues the gene bank of the former central institute.
literature
- The institute for crop research Gatersleben in 1966. In: Die Kulturpflanze. 15 (1 )/1966. Reports and communications from the Institute for Crop Plant Research of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin, pp. 13–340
- Central Institute for Genetics and Crop Plant Research of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in Gatersleben. In: The cultivated plant. 30 (3) / 1982. Messages from the Central Institute for Genetics and Crop Plant Research Gatersleben of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, pp. 333-350
- Rigomar Rieger: The Central Institute for Genetics and Crop Plant Research Gatersleben of the AdW of the GDR in the period 1969–1983 - attempt to look back on research goals and selected research achievements . In: The cultivated plant. 33 (1) / 1985. Messages from the Central Institute for Genetics and Crop Plant Research Gatersleben of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, pp. 19–31
- Hans Stubbe: History of the Institute for Crop Plant Research Gatersleben of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin 1943–1968. Series: Studies on the history of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR. Volume 10. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1982
- Gatersleben and the GDR's understanding of science. In: Georg Hartmut Altenmüller, Klaus Liesen: Between turn and flood. Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim 2003, ISBN 3-48-711818-1 , pp. 81-98
- Klaus Müntz , Ulrich Wobus : The Gatersleben Institute and its history. Springer, Berlin and Heidelberg 2012, ISBN 978-3-642-28648-3