
Ronald L. Phillips
Wolf Prize Laureate in Agriculture 2006/7

The Prize Committee for Agriculture has unanimously decided that the 2006/7 Wolf Prize be jointly awarded to Michel A. J. Georges and Ronald L. Phillips.
Ronald L. Phillips
University of Minnesota
St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
“for groundbreaking discoveries in genetics and genomics, laying the foundations for improvements in crop and livestock breeding, and sparking important advances in plant and animal sciences.”
Professor Ronald L. Phillips
He was the first to generate whole corn plants from cells grown in culture, which laid the foundation for, and sparked, a new industry, using cell-culture methods to genetically modify corn plants and other cereals. The corn cell line most widely used in the world today for genetic modification of corn has greatly accelerated the improvement of corn, as food, feed and fuel. Fundamental studies in the Phillips laboratory have further led to the identification of cells and plants with increased levels of essential amino acids and the development of an efficient DNA sequence mapping system used by plant scientists in genomics research. Phillips is also world-renowned for his leadership and service in the field of plant science within international agricultural research communities and for his teaching and student training in plant genetics.
