Biographical Memoirs Volume 86 (2005) / Chapter Skim
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Folke Karl Skoog
Folke Karl Skoog
Pages 312-333
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Archives Wisconsin of University
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From page 313... ...
Earlier Skoog had made several pioneering discoveries that helped to establish the general importance of auxin in plant growth regulation. During his multifaceted career he also investigated aspects of plant nutrition, advanced the science and art of plant tissue culture, and addressed a number of important questions in plant morphogenesis.
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During his graduate student years at Caltech he was luentored by the geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan, who had recently become head of the new Department of Biology; by Carl Lindegren, a graduate student who was later to become well known for his work on the genetics and biochemistry of Neurospora and yeast; and notably by Hermann Dolk, who had been induced to join Caltech to initiate research in the new field of plant hormones. Dolk was one of a number of gifted young scientists, including Robert Emerson, George Beadle, Kenneth Thimann, and Boris Ephrussi, who had been persuaded to
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From page 315... ...
Skoog began working with Dolk on the regulatory effects of auxin on plant growth, but Dolk was killed in an auto accident before the project was completed. Following Dolk's death, Skoog began working on auxin physiology and biochemistry with Kenneth Thimann, a young plant biochemist from England who was also to become renowned for his research on plant hormones.
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From page 316... ...
His laboratory was always an international center of intellectual activity, attracting students, postdoctoral associates, and visiting scientists from around the world. Throughout his long and distinguished career he received numerous honors and awards, including the Stephen Hales Award of the American Society of Plant Physiologists in 1954 and the Award of Merit of the Botanical Society of America in 1956.
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INVESTIGATIONS OF AUXIN METABOLISM AND PHYSIOLOGY The Stephen Hales Prize was awarded to Skoog for "outstanding contributions to research in the physiology of auxins, the development of plant tissue cultures, and the physiology of fresh water algae." The revolutionary discovery of kinetin was yet to come, but he had already made major contributions to research on the regulation of plant growth and development. As an undergraduate and graduate student working with Thimann at Caltech, he had shown that auxin activity could be extracted from plant sources other than the tips of coleoptiles, and that auxin applied to the cut surfaces of decapitated dicotyledonous seedlings could maintain apical dominance by substituting for the effect of the terminal bud in inhibiting the outgrowth of lateral buds.
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From page 318... ...
By the early 1950s Skoog's laboratory had demonstrated that cell divisions could be induced in tobacco pith tissue and an indefinite proliferation of callus tissue could be achieved by adding certain complex natural products to the medium. Coconut milk, malt extract, and yeast extract each induced cell divisions in tobacco pith tissue when added separately to a medium containing auxin.
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From page 319... ...
Twentyone of these brought about some degree of cell division in the tobacco pith bioassay system. The generic name "kinin," originally proposed for this new class of plant growth regulators, was later changed to "cytokinins" to avoid confusing the plant compounds with the kinins that stimulate smooth muscle contraction in animals.
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Her careful work contributed to a steady stream of publications describing in detail the structureactivity relationships of cytokinin-active compounds and antagonists. HORMONALREGULATION OF PLANT MORPHOGENESIS Through experimentation with tissue cultures Skoog and his associates established that contrary to the opinion prevailing at the time, plant growth and morphogenesis are controlled by complex interactions of multiple plant hormones in which both the relative and absolute amounts of these substances are important.
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Subsequent studies in the Skoog laboratory demonstrated that by appropriate sequential manipulations of the medium it was possible to control to a remarkable degree the formation of organs and the complete regeneration of whole tobacco plants from undifferentiated callus tissue. This result also proved to be applicable to a number of other tissue culture systems and finds important applications today in many of the strategies used in plant genetic engineering.
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Skoog was one of the first to suggest that plant hormones might be affecting growth and morphogenesis by mechanisms associated with nucleic acid metabolism and protein synthesis, and during the 1950s he and his coworkers published a number of papers relating auxin and cytokinin to cell division, nucleic acid content, and DNA synthesis. When the cytokinin-active nucleoside N6-(A2isopentenyl)
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From page 323... ...
He quickly developed personal relationships with leading figures in both colleges, the Medical School, and the university administration, and provided advice and established numerous collaborations that often ranged considerably beyond his own primary research interests. It is no exaggeration to say that he was responsible for rejuvenating and
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Shortly after his arrival in 1947 Skoog began to urge curricular reform in the Botany Department itself (e.g., in the approach and emphasis used in presenting the major introductory course in botany and in the course require
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These vigorously argued proposals understandably did not sit well with several members of the old guard, who felt their disciplines threatened, and resulted literally in years of acrimonious staff meetings. Although Skoog in time came to feel that the internecine warfare was too hard on his health, and in the early 1960s permanently stopped attending staff meetings, in fact, he did achieve his objectives; all the positions he advocated were eventually adopted, resulting in a much stronger and more competitive department.
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326 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS had to be determined * om their molecular formulas, solubilities, and reactions with reagents.
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One of us (DJ.A.) can testify from personal experience that it was always with some trepidation that a young graduate student or postdoctoral associate approached his office to report a disappointing result or some experiment gone awry.
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Folke himself was seldom one of the more aggressive participants, and he usually spoke in a low voice so that listeners had to strain to catch his words. But those who paid close attention were well rewarded; not only did he have a vast knowledge of the literature on plant growth substances but he was also exceedingly careful and rigorous in examining experimental data.
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From page 329... ...
In such cases he could be blunt in assessing a student's deficiencies in behavior and performance. Owing to his personal magnetism and the challenging nature of his research projects, throughout his career Folke Skoog proved to be highly successful in persuading talented individuals from many different disciplines to collaborate with him.
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1994. A personal history of cytokinin and plant hormone research.
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27:939-951. 1944 Growth and organ formation in tobacco tissue cultures.
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Organic growth factor requirements of tobacco tissue cultures. Physiol~ Plant.
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From page 333... ...
Isolation and identification of cytokinins located in the transfer nucleic acid of tobacco callus grown in the presence of 6-benzylaminopurine. Biochemistry 10:2189-2194.
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