Ernest R. Sears

Ernest Robert Sears (October 15, 1910 to February 15, 1991) was an American geneticist and botanist who worked for the United States Department of Agriculture at the University of Missouri and is considered, alongside Ralph Riley, one of the two most important founders of chromosome engineering in plant breeding. He developed methods to transfer agriculturally useful genes from wild relatives of wheat into cultivated varieties, producing resistance to powdery mildew, common bunt, wheat leaf rust and stem rust, and the same methods later proved important for introducing genes for insect resistance as well.