Maarten Chrispeels

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Maarten Chrispeels (born February 10, 1938) is a Belgian-American plant biologist and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Diego.[1] He is known for his research on the biosynthesis of storage proteins in legume seeds and for the discovery of water channel proteins (aquaporins) in plants.[2] He was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1996.[3] He is an inaugural fellow of American Society of Plant Biologists.[4] He was awarded Guggenheim Fellowships in 1973.

He was born in Kortenberg, Belgium.[5] He studied at the Faculty of Agriculture in Ghent, graduating summa cum laude.[6] In 1960, he moved to the United States to pursue a Ph.D. in Agronomy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.[7] He completed postdoctoral research at Michigan State University and Purdue University.[2]

Career

In 1967, Chrispeels joined the newly established Department of Biology at UCSD, where he remained for over four decades.[3] His early research focused on the secretion of hydroxyproline-rich glycoproteins in plant cells.[8] He later investigated the biosynthesis and vacuolar targeting of storage proteins in legume seeds, elucidating the role of the Golgi apparatus in protein trafficking.[9] His work contributed to the understanding of how proteins are modified and transported within plant cells.[3] Chrispeels' laboratory was among the first to use transgenic plants to study protein targeting.[8] While researching vacuolar transport signals, he and his colleagues identified aquaporins, membrane proteins that facilitate water movement across cell membranes, a discovery that advanced the field of plant-water relations.[10]

From 1996 to 2006, he served as director of the San Diego Center for Molecular Agriculture at UCSD.[3] For 12 years (1999-2011) he served as an advisor to the President of Chile on the Millennium Science Initiative Program and was elected as a foreign correspondent of the Academia Chilena de Ciencias.[11] He was awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa degree by the University of Guelph, Canada.[12]

Chrispeels co-founded two biotechnology companies. Phylogix, aimed at developing radioprotective agents for stem cells, ceased operations following funding withdrawal.[7] In 2010, he co-founded Arterra Bioscience with Gabriella Colucci in Italy.[13] The company focused on plant-based skincare products. After Arterra's IPO in 2021,[14] Chrispeels sold his shares and donated the proceeds to establish an endowed professorship in plant biology at UCSD.[15]

Research

In the 1980s, Chrispeels collaborated with researchers in Australia and the United States to develop insect-resistant transgenic crops.[16] His work on expressing a bean-derived alpha-amylase inhibitor in peas rendered them resistant to the pea bruchid beetle, marking one of the earliest successful uses of genetic engineering for pest resistance in seeds.[17]

Chrispeels has been an advocate for the use of biotechnology in addressing global food security and environmental sustainability.[18] He has emphasized the potential of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to contribute to sustainable agriculture by enhancing crop yields,[19] improving resistance to pests and environmental stressors, and reducing the reliance on chemical inputs such as pesticides and herbicides.[20]

Chrispeels co-authored the textbook Plants, Genes and Crop Biotechnology and produced educational materials translated into multiple languages.[21]

Selected bibliography

See also

References

External links

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