Waksman Professors named Fellows of AAAS

Rutgers professors have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an honor conferred on 381 other experts in the U.S. and abroad. Fellows are recognized for achievements across disciplines, from research and teaching to technology and administration. Lab directors from Waksman Institute were chosen by their AAAS peers for efforts to advance science applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished, according to the AAAS. The fellows received an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin at the AAAS Fellows Forum. The forum was held during the AAAS Annual Meeting.

The Waksman AAAS fellows are:

• G. Charles Dismukes, Distinguished Professor in Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Principal Investigator, Waksman Institute of Microbiology. Dismukes is a member of the executive committee of the Institute for Advanced Materials and Device Nanotechnology (IAMDN) and the graduate training faculty in microbiology and biochemistry. His research focuses on biological and chemical methods for renewable solar-based fuel production, catalysis, photosynthesis, metals in biological systems and tools for investigating these systems. The association cited Dismukes for “distinguished contributions to our understanding of natural and artificial photosynthesis, particularly catalysis of water splitting and its translation to device applications.”
   
• Pal Maliga, Distinguished Professor in Plant Biology and Pathology, and Principal Investigator, Waksman Institute of Microbiology Maliga is professor of plant biology and principal investigator at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology. His research centers on plastids, double-membraned organelles found in plant cells that are necessary for essential life processes, like photosynthesis and food storage. Maliga’s research interests are the biotechnological applications of plastid transformation, the biosafety of plastid transgenes and the genetic control of plastid inheritance. Maliga developed the technology of chloroplast transformation in tobacco plants, which uniformly alters thousands of plastid genome copies in a cell. This has led to an explosion of research concerning the chloroplast genome’s role in photosynthesis, functional analysis of plastid genes by reverse genetics, and mechanisms of plastid gene regulation. “It sounds very abstract but it’s become very important because this is the key to engineering photosynthesis,” Maliga explains. “What photosynthesis does is convert sunlight energy into biomass. This conversion is what sustains life on Earth.” Maliga estimates that if there are currently about 7.5 billion people on Earth and by 2050 there will be about 9.5 billion people, we need to produce twice the amount of grain we do now in order to live better and eat meat amidst a population boom. “To achieve this without increasing the land under cultivation,” he explains, “we need to improve the efficiencies of crops to transform sunlight into biomass.” Indeed, the ultimate goal is to replace native chloroplast DNA with engineered forms and add in new functions to enhance crop productivity for future generations. The association cited Maliga for “developing the technology of plastid genome engineering in flowering plants, and for pioneering applications to basic research on plastid function and to chloroplast biotechnology.”
   
• Richard W. Padgett, Principal Investigator, Waksman Institute of Microbiology and Professor in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. Padgett’s research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms of cellular growth control using the model systems, Drosophila and C. elegans. His lab primarily studies the transforming growth factor-β signaling pathway and has elucidated many components of this signaling pathway as well as contributed to the understanding of how the pathway functions. His lab has shown that many aspects of the transforming growth factor-β pathway are conserved between humans and the model organisms he studies. The association cited Padgett for “contributions to the field of developmental biology in Drosophila and C. elegans, particularly the transforming growth factor-β (TGFβ) signaling pathway.