Mary-Dell Chilton

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Mary-Dell Chilton (born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on February 2, 1939). Chilton is a key founder of modern plant biotechnology. She was the first (1977) to demonstrate the presence of a fragment of Agrobacterium Ti plasmid DNA in the nuclear DNA of crown gall tissue. Her research on Agrobacterium also showed that the genes responsible for causing disease could be removed from the bacterium without adversely affecting its ability to insert its own DNA into plant cells and modify the plants genome. Dr. Chilton described what she had done as disarming the bacterial plasmid responsible for the DNA transfer. She and her collaborators produced the first genetically modified plants using Agrobacterium carrying the disarmed Ti plasmid (1983).

Dr. Chilton received her PhD from the University of Illinois. She has been recognized for her work with Agrobacterium tumefaciens by an honorary doctorate from the University of Louvaine, the John Scott Medal from the City of Philadelphia, membership in the National Academy of Sciences, and the Franklin Medal in Life Sciences from the Franklin Institute.

[edit] See also

• Marc Van Montagu
• Jozef Schell

[edit] References

• Eden FC, Farrand SK, Powell JS, Bendich AJ, Chilton MD, Nester EW, Gordon MP., Attempts to detect deoxyribonucleic acid from Agrobacterium tumefaciens and bacteriophage PS8 in crown gall tumors by complementary ribonucleic acid-deoxyribonucleic acid-filter hybridization, J Bacteriol. 1974 Aug;119(2):547-53.
• Chilton MD., Agrobacterium Ti plasmids as a tool for genetic engineering in plants, Basic Life Sci. 1979;14:23-31.
• Chilton MD, Drummond MH, Merio DJ, Sciaky D, Montoya AL, Gordon MP, Nester EW., Stable incorporation of plasmid DNA into higher plant cells: the molecular basis of crown gall tumorigenesis, Cell. 1977 Jun;11(2):263-71.