Three agri-biotechnology experts have been hailed as the 2013 World Food
Prize (WFP) Laureates. One of them is Dr. Marc Van Montagu, Founder and
Chairman of the Institute of Plant Biotechnology Outreach (IPBO) based in
Ghent, Belgium. He used to work on crown gall disease and was one of the
discoverers of the plant tumor-inducing soil microbe (Agrobacterium
tumefaciens) which carries a circular molecule of DNA labelled as "Ti
plasmid". Later on, Montagu and Mary-Del Chilton, another 2013 WFP Laureate,
demonstrated that a portion of the plasmid is copied and transferred into
the genome of the infected plant cell.

Mary-Del Chilton, Founder and Distinguished Science Fellow of Syngenta
Biotechnology, Inc., and her team further investigated the mechanism of
Agrobacterium which she used to develop the first transgenic tobacco plant.
Her work provided evidence that plant genomes can be modified in a more
accurate manner than was possible using conventional plant breeding.

Another Laureate is Dr. Robert T. Fraley, Executive Vice President and Chief
Technology Officer of Monsanto. Fraley's research team produced the first
transgenic plants using the Agrobacterium transformation process. Fraley was
also the key person in the introduction of GE soybean that can tolerance
herbicide. He has especially championed making biotechnology accessible to
small-holder farmers.

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