Deborah Pierson Delmer is an American

plant pathologist Plant pathology (also phytopathology) is the scientific study of diseases in plants caused by pathogens (infectious organisms) and environmental conditions (physiological factors). Organisms that cause infectious disease include fungus, fung ...

, and professor emeritus at University of California, Davis. She was one of the first scientists to discover the enzymes and biochemical mechanisms for tryptophan synthesis. Delmer became president of the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) as of 1999. Delmer was awarded the 2011 ASPB Leadership in Science Public Service Award and the 2003

Anselme Payen Award The Anselme Payen Award is an annual prize named in honor of Anselme Payen, the French scientist who discovered cellulose, and was a pioneer in the chemistry of both cellulose and lignin. In 1838, he discovered that treating successively wood with ...

Career

Delmer earned a degree in biochemistry with departmental honors at Indiana University. Next she attended the University of California, San Diego, where she identified the pathway of tryptophan biosynthesis in plants, an area that others had not studied. She used '' Nicotiana tabacum'' as a model. She received her Ph.D. in cellular biology in 1968. Delmer then did postdoctoral work with

Peter Albersheim Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a su ...

at the University of Colorado. She successfully purified the enzyme

sucrose synthase In enzymology, a sucrose synthase () is an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction :NDP-glucose + D-fructose NDP + sucrose Thus, the two substrates of this enzyme are NDP-glucose and D-fructose, whereas its two products are NDP and suc ...

and studied its role in synthesizing and degrading sucrose. She also did postdoctoral work at UCSD with biologist Stanley Eli Mills. In 1974 Delmer became a professor at the Plant Research Laboratory of

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

in East Lansing, MI. She began to study the mechanisms by which plants polymerize glucose molecules and synthesize cellulose for their cell walls, using

cotton fiber Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...

as a model system. An important discovery was demonstrating that both plants and animals use lipids as an intermediate step in protein

glycosylation Glycosylation is the reaction in which a carbohydrate (or ' glycan'), i.e. a glycosyl donor, is attached to a hydroxyl or other functional group of another molecule (a glycosyl acceptor) in order to form a glycoconjugate. In biology (but not al ...

. As of 1987 Delmer accepted a faculty position at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

. Using a combination of approaches from molecular biology and genetics, Delmer and her collaborators developed a

cDNA library A cDNA library is a combination of cloned cDNA (complementary DNA) fragments inserted into a collection of host cells, which constitute some portion of the transcriptome of the organism and are stored as a "library". cDNA is produced from fully t ...

and were the first to identify a plant gene involved in the synthesis of cellulose. As of 1997, Delmer returned to the United States, where she became chair of the Section of Plant Biology at the University of California, Davis. One of her research experiments there determined that sterylglucoside is a primer for the initiation of cellulose synthesis and the creation of a new cellulose chain. In 2002, Delmer became a Director of the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...

. Her work there has focused primarily on agricultural development in Africa. She has emphasized the need for plant biology to become a translational science. She encourages scientists to address in-the-field problems faced by farmers, such as falling rates of crop production under conditions of stress and low inputs. Delmer sits on the board of The American Chestnut Foundation. She served as the editor-in-chief of the '' Annual Review of Plant Biology'' from 2002-2004.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Delmer, Deborah Living people Indiana University alumni University of California, San Diego alumni Year of birth missing (living people) American women botanists American phytopathologists Women phytopathologists 20th-century American botanists 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American botanists 21st-century American women scientists University of Colorado alumni Michigan State University faculty Academic staff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem University of California, Davis faculty American women academics Annual Reviews (publisher) editors