Eventually, several crops were in the
race to the field. I left Monsanto in
1987 and started working at then Ciba-
Geigy, now Syngenta, in North
Carolina. Here the emphasis was
clearly on corn to support our seed
company. Monocots were proving to
be especially difficult to transform and
it seemed that if the regeneration
system worked, it didn’t mesh with the
transformation procedure, and vice-
versa. In 1991, we published the recov-
ery of fertile transformed maize plants
using the Biolisticswgun.
During the rest of my career, I either
worked directly with, or supervised
work with, soybean, corn, vegetables,
cotton, rice, etc. I learned from every
one of the wonderful, intelligent, dedi-
cated people with whom I worked
throughout my career and I am eternally
grateful to them for being part of my
work and my life. In 2001, I retired
from Syngenta. I was happy, healthy
and satisfied with my career. Now I’m
giving back in various volunteer
capacities.I feel our work broke the mystique of
plant regeneration from cell culture, and
ultimately allowed the transformation of
recalcitrant crops. Transformation, in
most cases, depends upon being able to
work at the cellular level, thus without
the ability to regenerate from cell
culture, recovery of fertile transformants
is not possible.
Today, it is critical that we continue
the hunt for beneficial crop genes
while we look for other crops where
we can make a valuable difference.
Of equal importance is to educate the
public on the safety of enhanced
crops. We must convince the non-
scientists that we too have children
and do not want harm to come to
them or anyone, now or in the future.
This stance also requires responsibility
on our part. Enhanced crops mean
more people get to eat and more
people are healthy and can devote
their energies to improving the
world. That’s the goal. And that’s
always been my goal in agricultural
research.LIFE BOX 5.2. GLENN BURTON COLLINSGlenn Burton Collins, Professor Emeritus, Department of Plant and Soil
Sciences, University of KentuckyGlenn CollinsMy interest in science began during my
growing-up years living and working on
a farm. There I developed a fascination
with the diversity of the plants and
animals in our fields and streams. I
became even more fascinated and intri-
gued with living organisms as I began
to take science classes and started to
understand how living organisms func-
tioned and adapted to their diverse
environments. The defining moment
which led me down my specific edu-
cational and career pathway was in the
summer between my sophomore and130 TISSUE CULTURE: THE MANIPULATION OF PLANT DEVELOPMENT