Nick Carpita Elected to Lead ASPB in 2010–2011

Nick Carpita

Nicholas Carpita became president-elect October 1 and is slated to become ASPB president next October for the 2010–2011 term.

Nick is recognized for his expertise in the biology of the plant cell wall, from the structures of individual molecules and their biosynthesis, to the distinctive architectures of the cell walls of grass species, to the thousands of genes required for wall biogenesis and remodeling and the regulation of their expression. He is professor of plant biology at Purdue University and heads a Purdue initiative called the Midwest Center for Bioenergy that aims to provide a national resource of research and education for the improvement of crops used in biofuels production, taking discoveries in plant biology into agronomic practice in a sustainable and environmentally sound way. He grew up near Clearwater, Fla., where he became seriously interested in plant sciences his first year in high school. He obtained his degree in biological sciences at Purdue University in 1972 and a PhD in plant physiology at Colorado State University in 1977. His postdoctoral work from 1977 to 1979 with Dr. Deborah Delmer at the Department of Energy’s Plant Research Laboratory at Michigan State University first kindled his interest in the biosynthesis of cellulose. He returned to Purdue University in 1979 as an assistant professor in the Department of Botany & Plant Pathology and became full professor in 1989. He was also a visiting professor in the Plant Biology Institute in Zürich, Switzerland, 1986–1987, returning as a guest professor in 1994, and he has been guest professor at the Botanical Institute of São Paulo, Brazil.

Nick’s research interest is primarily the dynamic structure and function of the unique cell walls of grasses and related species, and he conducts research on the biochemical mechanism of synthesis of cellulose and other β-glucans. He established that flowering plants make two structurally distinct types of primary walls, and his genome-wide analyses of grasses and Arabidopsis revealed the genetic bases for these distinctions. His recent work revealed the natural regulation of primary wall synthesis by small interfering RNAs from antisense transcripts of cellulose synthase genes. Translating these discoveries into improvements in lignocellulosic biomass as a feedstock for biofuels production has become a focus of his lab. He is recognized by ISI as a highly cited author in Plant and Animal Sciences. He teaches an undergraduate course called Plants and Civilization, which traces the history of agriculture and the broad impacts plants have on human civilization. He also teaches a graduate course on plant carbohydrate chemistry and various methods courses and research workshops for undergraduate honors students.

Nick has been a member of ASPB since 1976. He served on the editorial board of Plant Physiology from 1987 to 1992 and as monitoring editor from 1998 to 2001. He also served as elected member of the Executive Committee (2002–2005) and as secretary (2005–2007), and he continues to serve on the Program Committee. He is an avid promoter of the role of ASPB in international plant biology, education, and public awareness of the impact of plants on society and economic stability. He was responsible for initiating the Fellows of ASPB Award, inaugurated in 2007, and for co-organizing the first Pan American Congress on Plants and BioEnergy in Mérida, Mexico, in 2008. In 2003, he served as vice chair for the Gordon Research Conference on Cell Walls and as chair for the 2006 conference, and he has served on international steering committees for the International Cell Wall meetings. He also served on the editorial boards of Planta, Methods in Cell Science, and the Brazilian Journal of Plant Physiology, and he has been named to the editorial advisory panel for the new journal Biofuels. He has served on several competitive grants panels, USDA-NRI and DOE’s Energy Biosciences, and was a panel member and panel head for BARD’s Cell and Molecular Biology section from 1993 to 1998.