Wanda K. Farr (January 9, 1895 – April 16, 1983) was an American

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

known for her discovery of the mechanism by which

cellulose Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important structural component of the primary cell wall ...

is formed in the walls of plant cells.

Early life

Wanda Farr (''née'' Kirkbride) was born near

New Matamoras, Ohio Matamoras, also known as New Matamoras, is a village in Washington County, Ohio, United States, along the Ohio River. The population was 702 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Marietta micropolitan area. History The Matamoras vicinity was ...

on January 9, 1895, to parents Frederick Alonzo Kirkbride and Clara M Nikolaus. When she was four years old, her father died and she and her mother went to live with Wanda's grandparents in New Matamoras. Her great-grandfather, Dr. Samuel Richardson, was a physician who lived in the same town. He helped cultivate her interest in science, in particular in plants and growing things.

Education and research

Wanda K. Farr received a bachelor's degree in biology from

Ohio University Ohio University is a Public university, public research university in Athens, Ohio. The first university chartered by an Act of Congress and the first to be chartered in Ohio, the university was chartered in 1787 by the Congress of the Confeder ...

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

in 1915 and a master's degree studying

Botany Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1918. After graduating from Columbia, she taught at

Kansas State University Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant college in 1863 and was the first public instit ...

and

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

. Around 1928, after marrying botanist Clifford Farr, Wanda Farr postponed enrolling in a Ph.D. program in order to move with her husband to

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

. There, she began working as a researcher under Montrose Burrows at the

Barnard Barnard is a version of the surname Bernard, which is a French and West Germanic masculine given name and surname. The surname means as tough as a bear, Bar(Bear)+nard/hard(hardy/tough) __NOTOC__ People Some of the people bearing the surname Ba ...

Skin and Cancer Clinic, and her husband began working as an assistant professor in botany at the same university. Farr performed microscopy on live animal and plant cell cultures. In February 1928, Clifford Farr died and the university asked Farr to teach his classes. She began research related to her late husband's work studying the growth of root hairs in plants. Within a few years, Wanda Farr was hired by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...

technologist on the strength of her previous root hair research. She moved to the Boyce Thompson Institute laboratory in Yonkers,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. After approximately ten years of research, she was appointed as Director of the Cellulose Laboratory of the Chemical Foundation at the same institute, until she was called to the laboratories of the American Cyanimide Company to do

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

war-related research. She was elected in 1930 a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

(AAAS). In 1956, she started her own research firm, Farr Cyochemical Laboratories. The Royal Microscopical Society elected her a fellow. She was also a member of the

Botanical Society of America The Botanical Society of America (BSA) represents professional and amateur botanists, researchers, educators and students in over 80 countries of the world. It functions as a United States nonprofit 501(c)(3) membership society. History The soci ...

and the Torrey Botanical Club.

Notable scientific discovery

Farr answered a question that had puzzled researchers for a hundred years.

Cellulose Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important structural component of the primary cell wall ...

, a primary component of cell walls, was known to be constructed from cellulose granules. These granules had appeared to microscopists prior to this time to emerge fully formed in the cell's

protoplasm Protoplasm (; ) is the living part of a cell that is surrounded by a plasma membrane. It is a mixture of small molecules such as ions, monosaccharides, amino acid, and macromolecules such as proteins, polysaccharides, lipids, etc. In some defini ...

. By contrast, the formation of

starch Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of numerous glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants for energy storage. Worldwide, it is the most common carbohydrate in human diets ...

, which is composed of the same elements

carbon Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent In chemistry, the valence (US spelling) or valency (British spelling) of an element is the measure of its combining capacity with o ...

hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, an ...

, and

oxygen Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as wel ...

, could be seen to occur in stages, in structures called

plasmids A plasmid is a small, extrachromosomal DNA molecule within a cell that is physically separated from chromosomal DNA and can replicate independently. They are most commonly found as small circular, double-stranded DNA molecules in bacteria; how ...

inside the cell protoplasm. Farr discovered that cellulose-manufacturing plastids do exist in the protoplasm of the cell, but that such plastids had been invisible because they have a light

refractive index In optics, the refractive index (or refraction index) of an optical medium is a dimensionless number that gives the indication of the light bending ability of that medium. The refractive index determines how much the path of light is bent, or ...

similar to that of the protoplasm in which they are located. She made the plastids visible in

cells by mounting the cells in a new bath derived from the juices of the cotton plant rather than in water, which had been used previously.

Notes

References

*Yost, Edna (1943). ''American Women of Science.'' Frederick A. Stokes Company, Philadelphia and New York. {{DEFAULTSORT:Farr, Wanda Plant physiologists 1895 births 1983 deaths American women botanists Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the Royal Microscopical Society Kansas State University faculty Texas A&M University faculty Washington University in St. Louis faculty Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Ohio University alumni People from Washington County, Ohio 20th-century American botanists 20th-century American women scientists Beltsville Agricultural Research Center scientists