Noel T. Keen—Pioneer Leader in Molecular Plant Pathology

Alan Collmer; Scott Gold

doi:10.1146/annurev.phyto.44.070505.143350

Annual Review of Phytopathology

Volume 45, 2007

Review Article

Free

Noel T. Keen—Pioneer Leader in Molecular Plant Pathology

Alan Collmer¹, and Scott Gold²
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Affiliations: ¹Department of Plant Pathology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853; email: [email protected] ²Department of Plant Pathology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-7274; email: [email protected]
Vol. 45:25-42 (Volume publication date September 2007) https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.phyto.44.070505.143350
© Annual Reviews

Abstract

Noel T. Keen (1940–2002) made pioneering contributions to molecular plant pathology during a period when the study of disease mechanisms was transformed by the new tools of molecular genetics. His primary contributions involved race-specific elicitors of plant defenses and bacterial pectic enzymes. In collaboration with Brian J. Staskawicz and Frances Jurnak, respectively, Noel cloned the first avirulence gene and determined that pectate lyase C possessed a novel structural motif, known as the parallel β-helix. Noel received his B.S. and M.S. from Iowa State University in Ames and his Ph.D. from the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1968. He joined the faculty of the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of California at Riverside the same year and remained there his entire career. He served as Chair of the department from 1983 to 1989 and in 1997 assumed the William and Sue Johnson Endowed Chair in Molecular Plant Pathology. He became a Fellow of the American Phytopathological Society in 1991, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1996, a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 1997, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1997. He was serving as President of the American Phytopathological Society (2001–2002) at the time of his death.

Keyword(s): AvrA, AvrD, Erwinia chrysanthemi, Pseudomonas syringae, syringolides, U.S.-Japan Seminars

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