Peter Beyer (born 9 May 1952) is a German

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

for

Cell Biology Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living an ...

at the Faculty of Biology of the

University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially ), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The university was founded in 1 ...

. He is known as

co-inventor In patent law, an inventor is the person, or persons in United States patent law, who contribute to the claim (patent), claims of a patentability, patentable invention. In some patent law frameworks, however, such as in the European Patent Convent ...

Golden Rice Golden rice is a variety of rice ('' Oryza sativa'') produced through genetic engineering to biosynthesize beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A, in the edible parts of the rice. It is intended to produce a fortified food to be grown and ...

, together with Ingo Potrykus from the

ETH Zurich ETH Zurich (; ) is a public university in Zurich, Switzerland. Founded in 1854 with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists, the university focuses primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. ETH Zurich ran ...

Biography

Peter Beyer studied

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

at the universities of Marburg and

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

. In 1981, he was awarded his doctorate in cell biology from the University of Freiburg and received his

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

in 2000. Afterwards, he was appointed Professor for Cell Biology at the Faculty of Biology. Since 2001, Beyer has been Vice-Director Plant Biotechnology of the Centre for Applied Biosciences (ZAB) in Freiburg. Starting in 2005, Peter Beyer became Principal Investigator in the ProVitaMinRice Consortium, a program funded by the

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation The Gates Foundation is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was launched in 2000 and is reported to be the third largest charitable foundation in the world, holding $ ...

and one of the selected Grand Challenges in Global Health projects. The project «Engineering Rice for High Beta-Carotene, Vitamin E and Enhanced Iron and Zinc Bioavailability», designed to further biofortify Golden Rice with other vital micronutrients has been awarded 11.3 Million USD to achieve its goals. Research is handled by a consortium of seven laboratories in a number of countries. Apart from Beyer's group the project involves groups from

Baylor College of Medicine The Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) is a private medical school in Houston, Texas, United States. Originally as the Baylor University College of Medicine from 1903 to 1969, the college became independent with the current name and has been se ...

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

, the

International Rice Research Institute The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is an international agricultural research and training organization with its headquarters in Los Baños, Laguna, in the Philippines, and offices in seventeen countries. IRRI is known for its w ...

and PhilRice, both in the Philippines, the Cuu Long Delta Rice Research Institute, and the

Chinese University of Hong Kong The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a public university, public research university in Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong. Established in 1963 as a federation of three university college, collegesChung Chi College, New Asia Coll ...

Research

Peter Beyer’s research focusses on the

biochemistry Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...

molecular biology Molecular biology is a branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecule, molecular basis of biological activity in and between Cell (biology), cells, including biomolecule, biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactio ...

and regulation of the plant renyl-lipid metabolism ( sterol.html" ;"title="renyl-lipid metabolism (sterol">renyl-lipid metabolism (sterols, vitamins Vitamin E">E and Vitamin K">K, carotenoid">vitamin">sterol.html" ;"title="renyl-lipid metabolism (sterol">renyl-lipid metabolism (sterols, vitamins Vitamin E">E and Vitamin K">K, carotenoids. Besides basic science the group focuses on applied pathway engineering to improve the nutritional value of crop plants. Peter Beyer pioneered the metabolic engineering of plants with engineering the beta-carotene biosynthetic pathway into rice endosperm, published 2000 in ''Science (magazine), Science'', which is widely appreciated as one of the success stories of

Synthetic Biology Synthetic biology (SynBio) is a multidisciplinary field of science that focuses on living systems and organisms. It applies engineering principles to develop new biological parts, devices, and systems or to redesign existing systems found in nat ...

. Consequently, Beyer is PI in the Centre for Biological Signaling Studies, which is devoted to this novel field in science.

Awards and honors

* 2002 European Science Prize * 2006 Voted as "Most notable and influential people in agricultural, environmental or industrial biotech research of the last ten years" by the readers of Nature Biotechnology Beyer has been recognized as a Pioneer Member of the

American Society of Plant Biologists The American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) is a non-profit professional society for research and education in plant science with over 4,000 members world-wide. It was founded in 1924, as the American Society of Plant Physiologists (ASPP). T ...

Publications

* The ''Golden Rice'' patent: Beyer P and Potrykus I. Method for improving the agronomic and nutritional value of plants EP1159428 B1, 5. Dezember 2001. * Ye X, Al-Babili S, Klöti A, Zhang J, Lucca P, Beyer P, Potrykus I (2000) Engineering the provitamin A (beta-carotene) biosynthetic pathway into (carotenoid-free) rice endosperm. Science 287:303-305. * S. Al-Babili, P. Beyer: Golden Rice - five years on the road - five years to go? In: Trends in Plant Science. 12 October 2005 S. 565-573

References

External links

Goldenrice.org

Harvestplus.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beyer, Peter 1952 births Living people Scientists from Hanover 20th-century German biologists German cell biologists Academic staff of the University of Freiburg University of Freiburg alumni Synthetic biologists 21st-century German biologists