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Cornell
graduate student Jodi E. Creasap received the 2002 Alfred Toepfer
Award during the 2002 Alexander von Humboldt Award for Agriculture
ceremonies at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station,
in Geneva, NY, on Monday, Nov. 4. The plant pathologist will use the
$5,000 prize to study crown gall disease of grapes in Germany.
CREDIT: J. Ogrodnick/NYSAES/Cornell
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FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
November
6, 2002
Contact:
Linda McCandless, 315-787-2417
Cornell
Grad Student Receives 2002 Toepfer Scholarship
by Joe Ogrodnick
GENEVA, NY: Jodi E. Creasap,
a third-year graduate student in Cornell University's department of plant pathology,
received the 2002 Alfred Toepfer Scholarship, the student component of the Alexander
Von Humboldt Award for Agriculture. Creasap was awarded the prize during the
award ceremonies honoring Dennis Gonsalves, former Cornell University Liberty
Hyde Bailey Professor of plant pathology and his research team, on November
4, at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, in Geneva, NY.
Creasap's current research involves
the bacterium Agrobacterium vitis, which causes crown gall disease of grapes.
Crown gall can decrease yield, eventually kills grapevines, and is very difficult
to eradicate from a vineyard once established. Creasap is researching which
cells in grape wounds are susceptible to infection by the bacteria, and the
role that plant hormones play in initiating development. She is also investigating
how a non-pathogenic strain of A. vitis may function as a biological control.
"The award provides Jodi with a great
opportunity to work in a leading laboratory in Germany that studies transformation
of plant cells by Agrobacterium," said Thomas Burr, chairman of the plant pathology
department at the Experiment Station, and the scholarship's major advisor. Next
summer, Creasap plans to study with Dr. Cornelia Ullrich at the Institut Fur
Botanik, Darmstadt University of Technology in Darmstadt, Germany.
The scholarship usually goes to a
graduate or doctoral student working in the von Humboldt winner's lab, but Gonsalves
suggested the scholarship go to a student at the Experiment Station, where he
had worked for 25 years, rather than one at his new post at the USDA in Hawaii.
This request was approved by members of the von Humboldt Foundation who oversee
the award.
"I'm thrilled and grateful to the
von Humboldt Foundation to be awarded this very exciting and interesting opportunity,"
said Creasap. "By studying with Dr. Ullrich, I will be able to apply their technology
to the grape crown gall system to improve our understanding of how crown gall
infects cells in wounds on grape. Another aspect of the project will be to further
our knowledge of how the crown gall biological control strain is able to prevent
grape cells from becoming infected by the pathogen."
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Note to Editors:
A related story on the other Von
Humboldt award winners is available at http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/pubs/press/current/vonhumboldtnov4.html
