Corresponding Member status is conferred by election on the annual ASPB ballot. This honor, initially given in 1932, provides life membership and Society publications to distinguished plant biologists outside the United States.
Renate Scheibe, University of Osnabrueck, Germany
Renate Scheibe is a leading contributor to our understanding of redox regulation in plants, extending from metabolic control to transportable reductant, and to rapid environmental responses by plant cells. As Professor of Biology at the University of Osnabrueck, she has pioneered studies defining the impact of redox regulation on enzymes central to inter-organelle communication, sensing, and signaling in response to environmental cues and stress. Her ground-breaking “malate valve” hypothesis (operated by an NADP-dependent malate dehydrogenase) is now a widely accepted mechanism for controlling export of reducing equivalents from illuminated chloroplasts. Renate quickly followed this early work with her discovery of a contrasting system for malate transfer in the dark (this one NAD-dependent) that is essential for deriving ATP from plastidial glycolysis.
These advances led her to focus on redox-dependent processes in the cytoplasm, specifically those that affect the cytoskeleton, the outer mitochondrial membrane, and the nucleus. She remains concurrently active in outreach, teaching, administration, and service to national and international societies, and her efforts have immensely aided the popularization of plants among students and the public. Renate has served as Dean of the Faculty of Biology and Chemistry at the University of Osnabrueck, Director of the Botanical Garden (currently active on the Board), National Delegate and Treasurer for the Federation of the European Societies of Plant Biology, and on the editorial board of Plant Physiology. Renate has also engaged in numerous other ASPB activities since 1979. She continues to make impressive contributions to our collective outreach efforts, as well as to our knowledge of cellular energy metabolism and the redox- poising systems in plant cell compartments in response to environmental cues and stress.
Kazuo Shinozaki, RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, Japan
Kazuo Shinozaki is Director of the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science in Japan. He is recognized internationally for his pioneering work on signal transduction in stress responses and plant genome science. In 1986, he elucidated the first complete nucleotide sequence of the chloroplast genome (in tobacco). Later, as a pioneer of plant functional genomics, he collected full length cDNAs, not only from Arabidopsis, but also from various crop, tree, and weed species. He has also provided valuable service in distributing these genomics resources from the RIKEN BioResource Center. Kazuo’s main interest has been in response of higher plants to abiotic stress, including gene expression, cellular signal transduction pathways, and in the molecular process of tolerance using transgenic plants.
He and his wife, Kazuko Yamaguchi- Shinozaki, have analyzed gene expression networks that regulate stress responses and have identified many important genes associated with tolerance to various stresses. He has demonstrated the presence of both ABA-independent and ABA-dependent regulatory systems governing drought-inducible gene expression. He also discovered the cis-acting and trans-acting regulatory elements DRE and DREB, which function in ABA-independent gene expression. Importantly, Kazuo applied these discoveries to the molecular breeding of drought-tolerant plants. Two papers on this subject (DREB transcriptional factors and the cis element) are listed among the ten most highly cited papers in The Plant Cell. Kazuo and his colleagues have published 437 papers; he is among the most-cited plant scientists. He has been an ASPB member since 1990 and has been invited many times to the ASPB annual meetings. Kazuo has also been President of the Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists (JSPP) (2010-2011), and in this capacity he has contributed to the Global Plant Council.
Honors will be presented at the Plant Biology 2015 meeting in Minneapolis. You can read the full list of 2015 ASPB awardees on the ASPB website.
About the ASPB Corresponding Membership Award
This honor, initially given in 1932, provides life membership and Society publications to distinguished plant biologists from outside the United States. The honor is conferred by election on the annual ballot. The committee selects no more than three (3) candidates, and these are placed on the ballot for approval of corresponding membership by majority vote. The president notifies successful candidates of their election. Election of a corresponding member is to be considered each year, and held if warranted, provided the election will not increase the number of corresponding members beyond two (2) percent of the dues-paying membership.