Steven Dale Tanksley (born April 7, 1954) is the Chief Technology Officer of Nature Source Improved Plants. Prior to founding Nature Source Improved Plants, Tanksley served as the Liberty Hyde Bailey professor of

plant breeding Plant breeding is the science of changing the traits of plants in order to produce desired characteristics. It has been used to improve the quality of nutrition in products for humans and animals. The goals of plant breeding are to produce cr ...

and

biometry Biostatistics (also known as biometry) are the development and application of statistical methods to a wide range of topics in biology. It encompasses the design of biological experiments, the collection and analysis of data from those experimen ...

and chair of the

Genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...

Initiative Task Force at

Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences The New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University (CALS or Ag School) is a statutory college and one of the four New York State contract colleges on the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, New York. With enroll ...

. He is currently a Professor Emeritus at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to ...

Education

Tanksley received a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

agronomy Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants by agriculture for food, fuel, fiber, chemicals, recreation, or land conservation. Agronomy has come to include research of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and s ...

from Colorado State University in 1976 and a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' ...

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar worki ...

from the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

in 1979.

Career and research

Tanksley joined the faculty at

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teac ...

in 1985 as an associate professor of plant breeding, and became full

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

in 1994. He led the development of the first molecular maps of tomato and rice. In 1993, Tanksley was the head of a Cornell research group that isolated and subsequently

cloned Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical or virtually identical DNA, either by natural or artificial means. In nature, some organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction. In the field of biotechnology, ...

a disease-resistance gene in tomato plants. The research is believed to be the first successful DNA map-based cloning in a major crop plant. Much of Tanksley's work focused on identifying alleles from wild relatives of crops that could be useful in improving cultivated varieties, for example fruit size and shape in tomato, using the technology

Marker-assisted selection Marker assisted selection or marker aided selection (MAS) is an indirect selection process where a Trait (biology), trait of interest is selected based on a Biological marker, marker (Morphology (biology), morphological, biochemical or DNA/RNA var ...

(MAS). He led work developing the advanced

backcross Backcrossing is a crossing of a hybrid with one of its parents or an individual genetically similar to its parent, to achieve offspring with a genetic identity closer to that of the parent. It is used in horticulture, animal breeding, and produ ...

Quantitative Trait Loci A quantitative trait locus (QTL) is a locus (section of DNA) that correlates with variation of a quantitative trait in the phenotype of a population of organisms. QTLs are mapped by identifying which molecular markers (such as SNPs or AFLPs) ...

(QTL) method, facilitating the introgression of new alleles into cultivated breeding lines. His team also spearheaded using genetic markers in comparative mapping among ''

Solanaceae The Solanaceae , or nightshades, are a family of flowering plants that ranges from annual and perennial herbs to vines, lianas, epiphytes, shrubs, and trees, and includes a number of agricultural crops, medicinal plants, spices, weeds, and o ...

'' species and others. Tanksley has co-authored more than 200 scientific publications and has mentored dozens of graduate students including

Susan McCouch Susan Rutherford McCouch (born 1953) is an American geneticist specializing in the genetics of rice. She is the Barbara McClintock Professor of Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University, and since 2018 a member of the National Academy of S ...

. In 2006, Tanksley co-founded Nature Source Genetics, a company based in Ithaca, NY, conceived to work on creating new computer algorithms to improve the efficiency of using natural genetic diversity in crop improvement. In 2016, Nature Source Genetics merged with the In Vitro division of Agromod, a Mexican company specializing in plant propagation, to form Nature Source Improved Plants, LLC, a US-based company dedicated to the genetic improvement, propagation, and sales of high performing plant materials. The company has one division in Ithaca, NY and one in Tapachula, Mexico.

Awards and honors

Tanksley was elected a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

(NAS) in 1995. He has received the

Alexander von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 17696 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, ...

Foundation Award, the

Martin Gibbs Martin Gibbs (November 11, 1922 – July 24, 2006) was an American biochemist and educator who worked in the field of carbon metabolism. The Martin Gibbs Medal, an award honoring individuals in plant sciences, is named in his honor. Career Gibbs w ...

Medal of the

American Society of Plant Biologists American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

, and the

Wolf Prize The Wolf Prize is an international award granted in Israel, that has been presented most years since 1978 to living scientists and artists for ''"achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among people ... irrespective of natio ...

in Agriculture. Tanksley was also awarded the Kumho International Science Award in 2005 for his work in molecular genetics. In 2016, he won the

Japan Prize is awarded to people from all parts of the world whose "original and outstanding achievements in science and technology are recognized as having advanced the frontiers of knowledge and served the cause of peace and prosperity for mankind." The P ...

.Steven D. Tanksley, Ph.D.
''japanprize.jp''. Retrieved October 7, 2019. He was elected a

Foreign Member of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemati ...

(ForMemRS) of London in 2009.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tanksley, Steven 1954 births Living people Colorado State University alumni University of California, Davis alumni Cornell University faculty Wolf Prize in Agriculture laureates Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Foreign Members of the Royal Society American geneticists