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Name: KARL KUNERT
Title: Professor in Botany
Place of work or school: University of Pretoria/Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute
Research area: Molecular Plant Physiology
Member since: 1978
Web page: http://fabinet.up.ac.za/molplantphys

1. Has being a member helped you in your career? If so, how?
   For many years I have been collaborating with Professor C. Foyer in the Untied Kingdom, who is a long-term member of ASPB. Since I am working in Africa and facing scientific isolation in my field of interest, this collaboration has greatly contributed to keeping an international scientific standard and has ultimately helped me secure my current position in academia.
2. Why has membership in ASPB been so important?
   I think it is very important that scientists have a professional representation for their field of interest. As a member of ASPB working in Africa, I specifically appreciate that I am constantly updated about recent developments in plant science and that I have access to two first-class journals as well as to meetings that focus specifically on my research interest and that are affordable for a scientist from a developing country.
3. Was anyone instrumental in getting you to join ASPB?
   No one was instrumental in getting me to join ASPB. But after earning my Ph.D. in 1976,1 felt proud as a young German scientist working in plant science to be a member of a professional society in the United States that had many members that I admired for their scientific achievements. I also felt quite early on that I could not succeed in my scientific career without being part of a community of scientists with a similar interest.
4. What would you tell nonmembers to encourage them to join?
   By working in Africa, I have experienced the importance of having as a scientist a scientific "home" and the feeling of being part of a family where somebody still cares for you. Unfortunately, many young scientists do not see the advantage anymore of being a member of a professional scientific society, often discouraged by the dominance of the "old guard," especially at scientific meetings. In my opinion, ASPB clearly offers advantages nowadays for young scientists. Besides offering a first-class annual meeting at an affordable price, I was deeply impressed by how ASPB actively encouraged and specifically promoted contributions by young scientists at Plant Biology 2001 in Providence this past July.
5. What person, living or dead, do you most admire?
   Being part of a generation that experienced science in the sixties and seventies, I very much admire the pioneering work of the scientists during that time. They made fundamental discoveries in science with often very simple tools by being controversial and focusing on unexplored fields. In my opinion, we are losing more and more this spirit to discover the unknown and to be controversial. Unfortunately, there is a common tendency in recent years to replace thinking with the most expensive equipment, making science extremely expensive and often inefficient.
6. What are you reading these days?
   I have started to read the book Hawaii, by James Michener. I am planning to attend Plant Biology 2003 in Honolulu, and before I go I would like to learn more about the history of these wonderful islands, which are almost exactly on the other side of the world from South Africa.
7. What do you think is the next "big thing" in plant biology?
   We will make significant progress in the new sciences, such as transcriptomics, proteomics, and ultimately metabolomics, and we will learn a new way of doing biology by analyzing, studying, and taking into account simultaneously a very great amount of data. But I do not see one real "big thing" in plant biology on the horizon. In my opinion, these "big things" mostly happen by accident, and they might happen only when we learn to appreciate basic research again and to avoid constantly challenging scientists with the application potential of their science and "product development."
8. Do you still read print journals? Where do you usually read them: work, home, library, in the car, on the bus?
   I am reading them at work in our library, and I still think that a hard copy has the advantage of letting one browse, which is somewhat difficult using exclusively an electronic version of the journal on the Internet.
9. Have you gotten a job using ASPB job postings or through networking at the annual meeting?
   Personally, I did not get my positions via job postings or because of a meeting or by being a member. But I strongly believe that by being a member of a professional society and participating in the activities and using the services it provides, younger scientists will enjoy specific advantages at the beginning of their career because they will become connected to potential employers in the field of plant science.
10. Do you have any hobbies?
    Tennis, which I can play year-round in South Africa, and skiing, which is, unfortunately, almost impossible in South Africa. But when I am in the United States or Canada, I head for the powder. The moguls are always a challenge.
11. What is your most treasured possession?
    My personal qualities of trying to be honest, tolerant, and helpful, which I think are important, especially for living in Africa. Also my family, who always joined me as I lived in different parts of the world pursuing my interest in science.
12. What do you still have left to learn?
    Since my whole life will be a learning process, there are many things left for me to learn that are either related to science or to living in Africa. In the short term I am extremely excited to learn the secrets of bioinformatics.