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Jozef Schell

Plant Sciences

Jozef Stefaan Schell (1935 to 2003) was a Belgian molecular biologist who, working with Marc Van Montagu, discovered the gene transfer mechanism between the soil bacterium Agrobacterium and plants, a finding that made it possible to turn Agrobacterium into a vector for delivering new genes into plant genomes and so opened the field of plant genetic engineering. He co-founded the biotechnology company Plant Genetic Systems with Van Montagu in 1982 and directed the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, and the pair shared the 1990 Wolf Prize in Agriculture and the 1998 Japan Prize for this work.

Facts
Birth Year
1935 1
Death Year
2003 1
Nationality
Belgian 1
Defining Contribution
Discovery of Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer into plants, founding plant genetic engineering 1
Connections

Associated With

The modern era of the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research began in 1978 with the appointment of Jozef (Jeff) Schell, whose development of plant transformation technology there founded its molecular genetics programme.

In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Jozef Schell (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation
  • lead sentence
    Jozef Stefaan "Jeff", Baron Schell (20 July 1935-17 April 2003) was a Belgian molecular biologist.
  • third paragraph
    Along with his colleague, Marc Van Montagu, Jeff Schell discovered the gene transfer mechanism between Agrobacterium and plants, which resulted in the development of methods to alter Agrobacterium into an efficient delivery system for gene engineering in plants.
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