Ames, Iowa
November 26, 2007
 Thomas
Lübberstedt has been named the new director for the
Raymond F. Baker
Center for Plant Breeding in the Plant Sciences Institute at
Iowa State University.
Lübberstedt joined the agronomy faculty as the Kenneth J. Frey
Endowed Chair on Sept. 1. He succeeds Kendall Lamkey as center
director, who served from 2002-2007. Lübberstedt’s appointment
as center director will be for five years.
The Raymond F. Baker Center for Plant Breeding advances the
science of plant breeding, develops enhanced germplasm and
superior cultivars of improved productivity, nutritional value
and adaptability and educates the next generation of public and
private plant breeders. The center is named for the Iowan whose
extensive work in corn breeding led to unprecedented innovations
in agriculture.
Lübberstedt, an associate professor, considers the strong plant
breeding and maize genomics programs at Iowa State excellent
environments for interdisciplinary research and examining the
potential for future biomass crops.
“My main crop will be maize, but I’m also working to develop a
dedicated bioenergy crop for Iowa besides maize,” Lübberstedt
said. “I will use my experience with perennial grasses to
develop a number of alternatives.”
Initially, his research will address how cell wall digestibility
impacts conversion to ethanol. He hopes to use results from his
previous studies on forage maize to identify varieties of
bioenergy crops, including maize, that provide high conversion
efficiency without penalty on biomass yield.
“I want to combine the two worlds of plant breeding and genomics
that are still somewhat separate by implementing diagnostic DNA
markers into plant breeding,” Lübberstedt said.
In addition to his research, as director of the Baker Center for
Plant Breeding he hopes to work with colleagues in agronomy to
develop an advanced plant breeding degree available through
distance education technologies.
He plans to work one month a year at the University of Århus in
Denmark, continuing his genomic research in forage and
turfgrasses.
Lubberstedt is a native of Germany where he grew up on a
horticultural farm in Hamburg. He received his doctorate in
biology in 1993 at the University of Munich. He previously
worked as a senior scientist with the Department of Genetics and
Biotechnology at the Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences
in Slagelse, Denmark.
The Kenneth J. Frey Endowed Chair in Agronomy was established
to expand the plant breeding program by developing new traits in
crops for the emerging bioeconomy. The chair is named in honor
of Frey, an emeritus Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor
of Agriculture who served on the agronomy faculty from 1953 to
1993. The endowed position was made possible by the Agronomy
Endowment, which was established in 1999 by an anonymous
benefactor to be used to strengthen the Department of Agronomy’s
position as a world leader in research, education and extension. |
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