Biology professor Craig Pikaard has been elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Pikaard was one of 84 new members and 21 foreign associates that were announced May 2.
He is the eighth active faculty member to be elected for the organization and the 26th in the University’s history. The last IU faculty member inducted into the organization was Emilio Moran, a Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Rudy Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, in 2010.
The National Academy of Sciences is a non-profit institution that recognizes achievement in the sciences. Its members also provide science, engineering and health policy advice to the government and other organizations. Members are chosen for their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
Pikaard is a plant geneticist and biochemist. He uses his work to advance research into the genetic mechanisms involved in disease and how changes in gene expression can advance disease in people. His work has also provided insight into how plants “silence” the expression of their genes, according to an IU press release.
“Craig’s prodigious intellectual curiosity and pioneering research have led to major discoveries about the basic biological mechanisms of plants that, in turn, have revealed new insights into health and illness in humanity,” said IU President Michael McRobbie in the press release.
Working with a plant in the mustard family, Pikaard has also made discoveries related to gene silencing in two previously unknown enzymes and how the location of a gene on a chromosome affects the expression of the gene, according to the release.
Pikaard is also an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; a non-profit media research organization that provided $84 million in funding for plant research. Howard Hughes investigators are regarded as being at the forefront of their fields, according to the release.
“His groundbreaking and innovative work at the intersection of the fields of plant genetics and biomedical sciences, as well as the major impact he has had on important issues facing agriculture, more than qualifies him to join the select number of Indiana University members in one of the world’s premier scientific organizations,” McRobbie said in the release.
Harley Wiltsey
