1915-Poultry scientist Dr

Pride In Our Past

1915-Poultry scientist Dr. B.F. Knapp develops the first vaccine for fowl pox, a major disease plaguing the poultry industry. He also publishes a landmark study in which he determines the proper dosage for 50 of the most commonly used poultry drugs.
1918-1929-Horticulturist Dr. Charles Dearing develops improved varieties of muscadine grapes, strawberries and blueberries for the Southeast.
1937-Agricultural engineer Dr. Hugh Hammond Bennett constructs the nation's first erosion-preventing terrace.
1937-Botanist Dr. Donald Benton Anderson leads a team of NC State researchers in the first study ever on the effect of constant light and temperature on the growth and structure of cotton fiber. His findings help bring cotton farming and breeding into the age of science. He wins the 1951 O. Max Gardener Award for this work.
1937-NC State agronomists (link to department of Agronomy) conduct the first studies on the benefits of crop rotation for Piedmont and coastal plain soils. In one test, they showed that where cotton was not rotated with legumes (soybeans, crimson clover and cowpeas) in a tree-year rotation, it yielded 264 pounds less seed per acre, despite being fertilized and limed.
1937-Agricultural engineers G.W. Giles and E.R. Collins develop the one-row mule-drawn planter.
1938-NC State researchers Dr. J.L. Etchells and Dr. T.A. Bell investigate chemical, physical and microbiological problems plaguing the cucumber processing industry. Their findings result in new and higher-quality products and reduced losses during brining and other processing operations.
1943-Crop scientist Dr. Paul H. Harvey introduces "NC 1032," a higher-yielding hybrid corn for North Carolina soils. The new variety is the first of 12 new hybrids Harvey would introduce during his career.
1955-NC State's Dairy Manufacturing Section revolutionizes flavor control equipment for fluid milk operations. The Milk Foundation heralds this discovery as a "milestone of United States milk history."
1955-Agricultural engineer Dr. F.J. Hassler invents temperature-controlled bulk curing for tobacco-the first major breakthrough in post-harvest tobacco processing in more than a decade. Hassler's technology reduces labor costs by 60 percent and serves as the first step towards mechanization of he tobacco-harvesting process.
1955-1960-Soil scientist Dr. Nathaniel T. Coleman does pioneering work on the use of radioisotopes in soil studies. In a classic Cold War science study, he also develops methods to remediate the effects of Strontium-90, a deadly by-product of nuclear blasts.
1956-1957-Forestry geneticist Dr. Bruce Zobel launches the Industrial Forest Tree Improvement Cooperative, the largest program of its kind in the world. Zobel's tree research and breeding methods produce trees that grow faster and straighter, with more usable wood and greater disease resistance. He wins the O. Max Gardner Award in 1972 for this work.
1959-Geneticist Dr. Kenechi Kojima's study of polymorphism-the study of genetic variation in a population-lays the groundwork for the modern study of population genetics and DNA forensics.
1959-Plant pathologist Dr. J. Lawrence Apple develops procedures for transferring black shank resistance from wild tobacco types to domestic plants without sacrificing leaf quality or total yield.
1959-Drs. Walton C. Gregory and W.C. Cooper use atomic energy to develop a new, higher-yielding variety of peanut. A forerunner of today's genetically engineered crops, the "atomic peanut" was the first successful large-scale artificial transmutation of a gene in the U.S.
1960-NC State horticulturists introduce a new higher-yielding, disease-resistant variety of sweet potato, called "Nugget."
1960-NC State food scientists develop an improved method to sterilize and package milk. The new process improves the flavor of the sterilized milk, rendering it more acceptable to consumers.
1968- NC State scientists develop and successfully test a method for monitoring surface water for pesticides. The test, conducted on the Pamlico and Tar rivers and the Pamlico Sound, is capable of detecting even minute concentrations of pesticides.
1968-1970-Food scientist Dr. Marvin L. Speck develops "Sweet Acidophilus" milk, which contains bacteria beneficial to human digestion.
1971-Forest biologist Dr. Ellis Cowling publishes one of the first papers on acid rain in North America, calling attention to acid rain's sources and its effects on forest health in the Appalachians. Two years later, he is inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of his work.
1972-Wood scientists Drs. A.J. Barr and A.G. Mullen introduce a "computerized lumber saver, a device that scans rough planks of lumber at mills, determines the most economical cuts, and then marks the boards accordingly for the saw.
1976-Horticulturist Dr. J.C. Raulston founds the NCSU Arboretum (formally dedicated in 1980 and now called the J.C. Raulston Arboretum). Since its founding, this arboretum has introduced more than 320 new plants for American gardens.
1977-Forestry geneticist Dr. Bruce Zobel's tree research programs develop a superior strain of loblolly pine capable of producing enough seed to allow reforestation efforts to depend entirely upon genetically improved seedlings.
1980-Dr. Wayne R. Skaggs develops DRAINMOD, a computer simulation model for tailoring the design of water management systems to specific soil, climate, site and crop conditions. It is later adopted for use by the U.S. Soil Conservation Service.
1981-Veterinary toxicologist Dr. Jim Riviere develops FARAD, the world's first on-line databank for information on the residual effects of veterinary drugs in food animals. The databank helps improve the safety of meat and dairy foods by giving farmers, veterinarians and food inspectors current information concerning contaminants in meat animals' systems or dairy cows' milk.
1983-Forestry engineer Dr. Awatif Hassan helps develop a mechanized tree planter capable of planting up to 1,000 seedlings per hour in undeveloped soil.
1986-Drs. Jim Riviere and Nancy Montiero-Riviere develop the isolated perfuse porcine skin flap, a four-inch piece of living skin surgically removed from the belly of a pig. It serves as an improved and humane model to assess human exposure to chemicals through the skin and measure the efficacy of transdermal drug therapies.
1986-Population geneticist Dr. Bruce S. Weir develops statistical methods that give birth to the science of modern DNA forensics. Among other things, Weir's methods allow scientists to determine the odds that a DNA match linking someone to a crime scene could have arisen from chance. In 1990, he publishes Genetic Data Analysis, which becomes the standard text for teaching quantitative genetics and DNA forensics worldwide.
1986-Crop geneticist Dr. Charles S. Levings, III, isolates the gene controlling for cytoplasmic male sterility, an important trait in the development of hybrid maize. His discovery aids in the development of a strain resistant to Southern Corn Leaf Blight, a dangerous and costly fungal disease.
1991-Aquatic botanist Dr. JoAnn M. Burkholder becomes the first scientist to characterize Pfiesteria piscicida, a single-celled toxic dinoflagellate linked to massive fish kills in Mid-Atlantic coastal waters and, in some cases, to human ailments.
1992-Drs. Ron Sederoff and David O'Malley lead a team of researchers that complete a genetic map of the loblolly pine. Their effort results in the most complex and extensive genetic map ever made of a woody plant. Two years later they use this map to help locate the gene that confers resistance to fusiform rust disease, a fungal disease that renders trees useless for lumber and causes an estimated $47 million in damages annually in the Southeast.
1996-Forestry professor Dr. D. Frederick develops an environmentally safe method to reduce harmful nutrient runoff from municipal, agricultural and industrial wastewater. The low-cost method uses chlorinated wastewater to fertilize trees, making them grow faster while removing 60 to 90 percent of the water's nitrogen and phosphorous.
1997-Dr. JoAnn Burkholder leads a research team that isolates a toxin from Pfiesteria piscicida in laboratory tests.
1997-Chemical engineer Dr. Joseph DeSimone, who holds joint faculty appointments at NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill, develops the MiCARE System, the first non-toxic, recyclable carbon-dioxide-compatible dry cleaning detergents.
1998-Biochemist Dr. James Otvos develops and patents a new blood cholesterol test that more accurately measures a person's risk of heart disease. The test uses nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to measure 15 subclasses of cholesterol-containing lipoproteins found in blood. He wins the 1999 Columbus Foundation Award for this contribution.
1998-Plant pathologists Drs. Steven Lommel and Tim Sit become the first scientists in the world to prove that RNA can control gene expression, a function formerly attributed only to DNA. Their finding, published in Science, supports the hypothesis that RNA, not DNA, is the basic building block of life.
1998-Forestry professor Dr. Anne-Marie Stump becomes the first scientist to genetically engineer duckweed, a common aquatic plant, to produce insulin and other therapeutic proteins. The process, which capitalizes on duckweed's rapid cloning ability and high protein content, offers a less expensive and more efficient method of producing protein drugs than traditional manipulation of soybean and mammalian cells.