The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center is an independent, not-for-profit research institute dedicated to plant science located in the Creve Coeur community of Saint Louis County, Missouri, United States. It was founded in 1998 by William Henry Danforth, chancellor emeritus of Washington University in St. Louis and named after his father, and established through a $60 million gift from the Danforth Foundation, a $50 million gift from the Monsanto Fund, the donation of 40 acres of land from

Monsanto The Monsanto Company () was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best-known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed ...

, and $25 million in tax credits from the State of Missouri. The Center has a $30 million annual operating budget, a $300 million endowment, and 242 employees, including 30 principal investigators. It is home to the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels and the International Institute for Crop Improvement. The Danforth Center Core Facilities include

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field of science that develops methods and Bioinformatics software, software tools for understanding biological data, especially when the data sets are large and complex. Bioinformatics uses biology, ...

, integrated

microscopy Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view subjects too small to be seen with the naked eye (objects that are not within the resolution range of the normal eye). There are three well-known branches of microscopy: optical mic ...

, phenotyping, plant growth,

proteomics Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital macromolecules of all living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replicatio ...

and

mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a ''mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is used ...

, and

tissue culture Tissue culture is the growth of tissue (biology), tissues or cell (biology), cells in an artificial medium separate from the parent organism. This technique is also called micropropagation. This is typically facilitated via use of a liquid, semi-s ...

and transformation. Services are offered to both internal and external clients, and training/access is available to scientists interested in developing knowledge and skills.

History

Founded in 1998 through the efforts of William Henry Danforth, chancellor emeritus of Washington University in St. Louis, the Center was established with a $60 million gift from the Danforth Foundation, a $50 million gift from the Monsanto Fund, the donation of 40 acres of land from

, and $25 million in tax credits from the State of Missouri. The founding chairman was William Henry Danforth with Ernest G. Jaworski as director. Roger N. Beachy became the first president in 1999. The Danforth Center building was sustainably designed by

Nicholas Grimshaw Sir Nicholas Grimshaw (born 9 October 1939) is a prominent English architect, particularly noted for several modernist buildings, including London's Waterloo International railway station and the Eden Project in Cornwall. He was President of ...

and opened in October 2001. On September 24, 2009, Beachy was appointed by U.S. President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

to be the first director of the

National Institute of Food and Agriculture The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) is a U.S. federal government body whose creation was mandated in the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008. Its purpose is to consolidate all federally funded agricultural research, a ...

(NIFA). James C. Carrington is the current president and chief executive officer. He joined the Center in 2011. In June 2009 the first building of the new Bio-Research & Development Growth (BRDG) Park biotechnology incubator opened on the Danforth Center campus. In April 2016, the William Henry Danforth Wing opened. Surrounding the buildings are six acres of reconstructed native Missouri

prairie Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the ...

Programs

The VIRCA Plus (Virus Resistant Cassava for Africa Plus) research program, formerly just VIRCA, is coordinated with Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) and

Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...

's National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI).

References

External links

* {{Authority control Independent research institutes Buildings and structures in St. Louis County, Missouri 1998 establishments in Missouri Non-profit organizations based in Missouri