2012 Borlaug Dialogue

Dr. Robert T. Fraley, Ph.D. has been Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Monsanto Co. since August 2000. Dr. Fraley primary responsibility is to oversee Monsanto's integrated crop and seed agribusiness technology and research with facilities in most every world area. He has been Co-President of Agricultural Sector of Pharmacia Corporation (formerly, Monsanto Company) of DEKALB Genetics Corp. since March 1997. He has been... Read More →

Em. Prof. Marc Van Montagu is a pioneer in plant molecular biology. He is well known (with J. Schell) as the discoverer of the Ti-plasmid and the inventor of Agrobacterium tumefaciens transformation technology, now used worldwide to produce genetically engineered plants. Van Montagu used this new technology to study gene regulation and to discover the molecular basis of several plant physiological processes... Read More →

M.S. Swaminathan was born in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu, India, on August 7, 1925. Inspired by the example of Mahatma Gandhi, the young man was committed to serving his country and considered becoming a police officer. Winning a fellowship in 1949, he instead studied agriculture in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, earned a Ph.D. in plant genetics from Cambridge in 1952, and continued his research in the United States. Dissatisfied with the... Read More →