Theodor Otto Diener (28 February 1921 to 28 March 2023) was a Swiss-American plant pathologist at the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Maryland. In 1971 he discovered that potato spindle tuber disease was caused not by a virus but by a short strand of RNA with no protein coat, which he named a viroid, a discovery the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses later recognized as founding a new order of subviral agents. He received the Wolf Prize in Agriculture.
Facts
Defining ContributionDiscovered viroids in 1971 while investigating potato spindle tuber disease, identifying the causative agent as a short strand of RNA with no protein coat, far smaller than any known virus. 1 Sources
1. Theodor O. Diener (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundationopening sentence, dates
Theodor Otto Diener (28 February 1921-28 March 2023) was a Swiss-American plant pathologist who discovered viroids in 1971, recognized by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses as a new order of subviral agents.
opening sentence, nationality clause
Theodor Otto Diener (28 February 1921-28 March 2023) was a Swiss-American plant pathologist who discovered viroids in 1971, recognized by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses as a new order of subviral agents.
Viroid section
This led to the unexpected discovery of the causative agent, a small RNA molecule, eighty times smaller than the smallest known viruses, for which he proposed the term viroid.
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