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Under Mike Robert’s leadership, MU scientists at
the new Life Sciences Center will be working to improve
human and animal health, food and the environment. Photo
by Ginny Booker
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First
Life Sciences Center Director Appointed
By Christian Basi
Brady Deaton, provost and executive vice chancellor at the University
of Missouri-Columbia, announced today that Michael
Roberts, distinguished curators professor of animal sciences
and a member of the National
Academy of Sciences, has been appointed director of the Life
Sciences Center at MU, effective Jan. 1, 2004.
“Mike Roberts is an international
science leader with the vision, skill and credibility across campus,
the state and the world to make the Life Sciences Center a key
component in major discoveries for the benefit of the citizens
of Missouri as well as those outside of our state,” Deaton
said. “Under his leadership, our scientists will be working
with colleagues in St. Louis, Kansas City and around the world
to find answers to some of the major human health, agricultural
and environmental problems the world is faced with today.”
As director, Roberts will be responsible
for working with interdisciplinary teams across the campus. These
teams are composed of faculty from the College
of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources; College
of Arts and Science; College
of Engineering; School
of Medicine; School
of Health Professions; College
of Human Environmental Sciences; and the College
of Veterinary Medicine. Research programs housed in the Center
will harness new technologies to improve crop productivity, food
safety, and animal health and reproduction; develop new treatments
and diagnostics for human disease; and enhance environmental quality.
“We are very excited that we were able
to attract Mike Roberts for this position,” said Jim Coleman,
vice provost for research at MU. “He is a great example
of an interdisciplinary life scientist and a wonderful communicator
who can strengthen our bridges with major research centers across
the campus and throughout the state including the Danforth Plant
Science Center and the Stowers Medical Institute.”
“I have a certain amount of trepidation
because this represents a new venture for the University,”
Roberts said. “We’ll be creating interdisciplinary
teams of researchers that will not only work together within their
teams, but with other teams as well. I hope the Center will be
a welcoming place for the life sciences with seminars and a variety
of exciting graduate and undergraduate research. It will be important
that we work to become self-sustaining by generating a sufficient
amount of research money. The state and federal government, private
individuals and groups have made significant contributions toward
this endeavor, and it’s important that we use that investment
wisely.”
After earning a bachelor’s degree in
botany in 1962 and a doctoral degree in plant physiology and biochemistry
in 1965, both from Oxford University, England, Roberts became
first a postdoctoral researcher and then an assistant professor
in the biology department at the State University of New York.
In 1968 he was awarded a fellowship to work at the Radiochemical
Center, Amersham, then part of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy
Authority, but now a private company, Amersham International.
In 1970, he was hired at the University of Florida. He has been
on the faculty at MU as professor of biochemistry
and animal sciences
for 18 years. He was elected chairman of the Department of Veterinary
Pathobiology in 1995, became chief scientist with the National
Research Initiative of the USDA on a halftime basis for two years
beginning in 1998, and returned to full-time teaching and research
in 2000.
Roberts has made several notable discoveries
during his 30 years of research, including the description of
the proteins produced by the embryo that regulate early pregnancy
in cattle and sheep, a finding that ultimately led to his award
of the prestigious Wolf
Prize, which is often regarded as the “Nobel Prize of
agriculture,” earlier this year. His latest research in
collaboration with colleague Cheryl Rosenfeld has shown that diet
can be used to manipulate the sex of offspring in mice. Roberts
and Jon Green, an assistant professor of animal sciences, have
recently developed an accurate chemical pregnancy test for cattle.
Roberts has been supported by grants from
the National Institutes of Health
since 1973 and has earned two-dozen awards for his research, instruction
and contributions to science, including Researcher of the Year
from MU, the Von Humboldt award for agriculture, and an honorary
doctorate from the University of Liege in Belgium. In 1996, he
was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Earlier this
year he was appointed to lead the National Academy’s review
of the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., following a string of
highly publicized animal deaths.
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Last Update:
November 15, 2007
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