The Arthur W. Galston Memorial Lecture

The 2011 Arthur W. Galston Memorial Lecture took place on April 5.

Jo Handelsman

Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor

Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology

Yale University

The Future of Our Microbial Planet

Click here for a video recording of this lecture.

Abstract: Microbes are essential for every aspect of life on Earth.  Every process in the biosphere is touched by the seemingly endless capacity of microbes to transform the world around them.  They drive the biogeochemical cycles of the Earth, providing access to otherwise inert elements that comprise life.  We depend on microbes to clean up pollutants in the environment, such as oil and chemical spills.  Microbes living inside our bodies and on all plants and animals make our food supply possible and accessible.  Microbes are the primary source of antibiotics and many other pharmaceuticals that transformed human existence in the 20th  century.  But microbes are not all good – they have also been the source of much pain and anguish in human history, causing famines and plagues and mystifying people throughout the ages by their diverse functions and capacity for rapid evolution.  Today it is clear that microbes are responsible for far more diseases than the terrible infectious diseases for which they are best known.  For example, they also contribute to (and probably protect us from) obesity, certain cancers, and high cholesterol.  This talk will explore the benefits and blights of microbes and the ways that humans can harness them for benefit to our health and the health of the planet. 

About the Speaker: Dr. Jo Handelsman is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor at Yale University’s Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. Dr. Handelsman joined Yale at the beginning of 2010, before which she spent 25 years on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Handelsman’s research focuses on the genetic and functional diversity of microorganisms in soil and insect gut communities, with particular focus on the interplay of beneficial or pathogenic microorganisms. She is one of the pioneers of functional metagenomics, an approach to accessing the genetic potential of unculturable bacteria in environmental samples, and has discovered diverse bacterial metabolites and antibiotic resistance genes in metagenomic libraries. In addition to her research program, Dr. Handelsman is nationally known for her efforts to improve science education and increase the participation of women and minorities in science at the university level. She co-founded the Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute at UW-Madison, and was appointed as the first president of the Rosalind Franklin Society. In addition to more than 100 scientific research publications, Dr. Handelsman is co-author of two books about teaching: Entering Mentoring and Scientific Teaching. Earlier in 2011, President Obama presented Dr. Handelsman with the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring.

About the Honoree: Arthur W. Galston’sresearch focused on plant photobiology, hormones,
protoplasts and polyamines. His major research contribution, he believed, was to suggest and obtain evidence, in 1950, that riboflavin – rather than carotene as previously believed – was the photoreceptor for phototropism. He also discovered the kind of pigment that causes plants to bend in the light.

In his early research, Professor Galston experimented with a plant growth regulator, triiodobenzoic acid, and found that it could induce soybeans to flower and grow more rapidly. However, he also noted that if applied in excess, the compound would cause the plant to shed its leaves. Others used Professor Galston's findings in the development of the powerful defoliant Agent Orange. The chemical is now known to have contained dioxins, which have proven to be associated with cancers, birth defects and learning disabilities. In 1970, with Matthew S. Meselson of Harvard University and other scientists, Professor Galston charged that Agent Orange also presented a potential risk to humans. The revelation led President Richard M. Nixon to order a halt to the spraying of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.

During his Yale career, Professor Galston served in several administrative positions. He
chaired the former Departments of Botany and Biology and was director of the Division of Biological Sciences. He also chaired the University's Course of Study Committee and the Committee on Teaching and Learning. He mentored 24 Ph.D. students and 67 postdoctoral fellows from 16 countries, and in 1994 received the William Clyde DeVane Medal for lifelong teaching and scholarship. At the time of his death, he was the Eaton Professor Emeritus in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and professor emeritus in the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

After his retirement, Professor Galston was associated with the Institution for Social & Policy Studies (ISPS), serving on its Executive Committee for the Interdisciplinary Bioethics Project. He helped found Yale's Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics in 2005. He taught a new introductory course in Yale College in 2003-2004 that attracted more than 460 students, making it one of the largest courses in Yale College. For more than a decade, he taught college seminars in bioethics. He also organized a series on bioethics at the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale.

Professor Galston served as president of both the Botanical Society of America and the American Society of Plant Physiologists. He received numerous academic honors, including Guggenheim, Fulbright and Senior National Science Foundation Fellowships, and honorary degrees from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Iona College. In 2004 he received the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Alumni Achievement Award from the University of Illinois.
A graduate of Cornell University, Galston earned his doctorate in botany from the University of Illinois in 1943.

With grateful thanks to the Lectureship Committee:
-Beth Galston, Artist; Arthur Galston’s daughter
-William Galston, Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, The Ezra K. Zilkha
Chair in Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution; Arthur Galston’s son
-Nancy Kerk Associate Director, Yale Center for Genomics & Proteomics; Associate Research Scientist, Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology
-Carol Pollard, Associate Director, Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics
-Thomas Pollard, Sterling Professor and Chairman, Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology
-James Ponet, Jewish Chaplain and Director, Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale
-David H. Smith, Director, Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics
-Ian Sussex, Senior Research Scientist, Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology

Click here for information about the 2010 Galston Lecture

Click here for information about the 2009 Galston Lecture