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Jeff Schell in Cologne

2000; Wiley; Volume: 23; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1046/j.1365-313x.2000.00818.x

1365-313X

Peter Starlinger,

Plant Genetic and Mutation Studies

It was at a meeting in Cold Spring Harbor in 1976 that I met Jeff Schell for the first time. Shortly thereafter, discussions began in a search committee given the task of finding a director for the Max-Planck-Institut für Züchtungsfor-schung (MPIZ) in Cologne. Jeff Schell quickly emerged as the leading candidate, and the Max Planck Society offered him the position. For several reasons, this turned out to be a wise decision. Of course, science is the main concern of the director of a Max Planck Institute. The MPIZ already had a distinguished history, and under its previous two directors, Wilhelm Menke and Josef Straub, interesting results had been obtained. However, by the end of the 1970s, the study of molecular biology was mandatory for a modern institute, as was the then quite new science of genetic engineering that presented the possibility of allowing the knowledge of molecular genetics to be put to practical use. Who could have been better suited for such a programme than Jeff? He had already for a number of years, together with Marc Van Montagu, studied plant tumours. They had gained deep insights into the causation of these tumours by Agrobacterium tumefaciens or, rather, by a plasmid harbored by the bacterium, the Ti-plasmid, and even more precisely, by the T-DNA that forms part of this plasmid. These studies were continued in Cologne and brought many interesting insights. One of the most important was that the T-DNA is transferred from the plasmid inside the bacterium into the plant cell, and that it is integrated there into a plant chromosome and thus becomes heritable information. Another insight was that most of the T-DNA, although important for conferring the tumorous phenotype to its host cell, is quite passive in the transfer reaction. The most important role in this process is played by the rest of the Ti-plasmid that remains in the bacterium and becomes dispensable, together with its host bacterium, once the transfer reaction has been achieved. This, however, was only part of the interest in the system. Jeff, as well as a few other scientists, soon realized that the machinery of the transfer of the T-DNA from the Ti-plasmid into the plant cell could be used for quite different purposes. Replace the T-DNA with another piece of DNA carrying some desired genetic information and you have a vector system for genetic engineering in plants. This is easily said, but was hard to achieve. Recalling those early days in the field of plant genetic engineering in the first half of the 1980s, we can see the obstacles that had to be overcome. Although the plasmids used in Escherichia coli bacteria were of moderate size to begin with and were subsequently made much smaller (and thus more manageable), as a major effort by the scientists involved, in Agrobacterium one had to start with plasmids of enormous size. This meant that one could not just use the techniques of in vitro gene cloning. Rather, these techniques had to be combined with those from the more classical studies of the molecular biology of plasmids, in which recombination between different DNA molecules occurs in vivo. This involved more work than could be undertaken by one principal investigator with a small research group. Fortunately, the resources of the Max Planck Institute could be mustered, but it needed Jeff's leadership to organize a department with several outstanding group leaders who were willing to contribute to a common goal rather than trying to develop a profile of their own as separate as possible from that of the institute's director. I do not know whether this was always easy, but the success achieved shows that it was possible. This work was so successful that it is today taken somewhat for granted. The techniques of modifying plants with the help of A. tumefaciens are used in innumerable laboratories throughout the world. With this, I leave the scientific achievements of Jeff's years in Cologne, although it would be easy to fill several pages with the many directions of research that were followed in his department by many research groups, often working quite independently but all inspired by Jeff. The topics of research in those years were wide ranging and included, amongst others, work on brassinosteroids, on nitrogen fixation, and on improving the oil quality of rape seeds. I now turn to Jeff's role as director of an institute. This was, right from the beginning, a demanding task. Jeff was Wilhelm Menke's successor. The other director of the institute was Josef Straub, who himself was to retire within 2 years. Although the appointment of every director within the Max Planck Society is decided at a high level, it was clear that the new director should have an important role in this process if he chose so. Jeff took this on with great fervour. It became possible to appoint Heinz Saedler, an already accomplished investigator of transposons, who was to develop a department of his own into many important directions. But this was not enough. The Max Planck Society often closed departments, or even whole institutes, when a director retired if it was thought that the main fruits of his research had been reaped. This had happened with two departments in which plant science had been carried out. The ruling bodies of the Max Planck Society were persuaded – and Jeff played a most important role in this – that this was an opportunity to unite most of the plant research in Cologne and to do so in an integrated manner. Thus, a third department was founded, with Klaus Hahlbrock as its director, that was to study host–pathogen interactions, and a fourth department under Francesco Salamini for the study of breeding using modern molecular biology, but with studies to be carried out also in the field rather than only in the laboratory. This policy showed the vision of Jeff and his colleagues: use the most modern molecular biology, enhance it with your own research, but always in the hope that eventually this will result in economically and ecologically improved varieties for the breeder. Could this be done in an academic research institute by itself? Possibly not. For this reason, Jeff right from the beginning forged alliances with industry, and in doing so, he and his partners searched for ways in which mutual interests could be pursued without compromising the freedom of academia or the economic necessities of the industrial partners. Needless to say, all of these endeavours took Jeff deeper and deeper into politics, as an advisor to scientific unions and ministries, brought him appointments as an editor of journals, and as a member or chairman of granting agencies, as well as a participant in the public debate on the risks and benefits of genetic engineering. It was a disappointment for him that the public at large could not be convinced that the foreseeable benefits by far outweighed the hypothetical risks. But when this eventually does happen, it will in part be due to Jeff's work too. All of these achievements have been recognized by the bestowment of many honours and prizes, of which I here mention only the Japan prize, which he shared with Marc Van Montagu. Let me close by mentioning Jeff's efforts towards creating a good and close relationship with the university. We often nowadays read in the general, and sometimes even in the scientific, press that the Max Planck Institutes work in isolation and that their expertise is not used for the education of the new generation of scientists. I do not know whether this is so elsewhere, but it certainly hasn't been true in Cologne during Jeff's time here. Over this time, relations have been close and, I think, mutually beneficial. Let me just recall two experiences. I remember having a lunch conversation with Jeff in which he mentioned that the German research ministry had suggested he form a ‘Green Gene Center’ in Cologne. Would I be interested in participating? Of course I would, but I asked whether it would be necessary to confine this to ‘green’ biology. Could not the whole of the Institute for Genetics of the university – largely involved in ‘red’ biology – be involved? Without a moment's hesitation, Jeff agreed to try to persuade the ministry of this. It worked, and for many years the ‘Gene Center’ became a major funding device not only for the Max Planck Institute but also for the Institute for Genetics. A second reminiscence. It became possible to found a small institute, housing six independent research groups headed by young investigators, that was administered jointly by the Max Planck Institute and the Institute for Genetics of the university. The Max Delbrück Laboratory, as it was called, satisfied another often-voiced demand on the German academic structure: complete independence of younger scientists to develop their research and thus their careers. Again, Jeff played an important part in this endeavour. Needless to say that these relations led to a close collaboration not only in teaching, but also in the supervision of diploma and PhD theses at the Max Planck Institute. The PhD students were very important to research at the Max Planck Institute. The diploma students, however, required a greater degree of teaching and supervision before they could become a real help to the research. Had the Max Planck Institute not been willing to take on these commitments, the situation in the 1980s, with its very high student enrolment, would have been quite difficult for the university. In summary then, I should like to stress that Jeff Schell did much more in Cologne than his well-known science. He was a scholar in the best sense of the word, who not only formed a powerful research group around himself, but who was also able in important ways to create a good climate for research for a whole generation of molecular biologists in Cologne. We hope that he will see this continue and to enjoy it in the future. Fig. 1 Trip to Gent, Belgium –- football battle between the MPIZ Department Schell and the Laboratory of Genetics (1982). Fig. 2 The four MPIZ directors, Francesco Salamini, Klaus Hahlbrock, Heinz Saedler and Jeff Schell, by the Max Planck statue (1985). Fig. 3 Jeff Schell with the former Belgian King, Baudouin (on the right) and the former President of the FRG, Richard von Weizsäcker (on the left), on the occasion of their visit to the MPIZ (1989).