Pioneer Member

Yehudit Amor – Thanks to the knowledge about polysaccharides I acquired working on my PhD in Prof. Debby, I got my first job outside of the academia. I joined a startup company, Procognia (former Glycodata). We claimed to analyze complex sugars using lectins and an algorithm based on glycol analyses of traditional methods and the results obtained on a lectin chip. As polysaccharide knowledge is rare in my country, my team and I were responsible for establishing the infrastructure for glyco-analysis in the traditional ways that were accepted in the early 2000s to help our company evolve from a startup company to a public company. I manage the department where we have succeeded to develop many methods required for glycan analysis associated with proteins: N and O-glycans, analysis of the sugar which are part of the algal cell wall and analysis of different type of glucose amino glycans (GAGs). No members in my department had prior knowledge of these methods, but the approach I learnd in Debby’s lab has shown that anything is possible thorough literature research and careful planning, as well as precise laboratory work at all stages paying special attention to appropriate controls and reviews. An additional thing I have acquire from Debby is the kind of mentor/ leader she was. The way I manage my team is according to Debby’s spirit: Debby was an exemplary leader and boss. The spirit of the team in her laboratory was like the spirit of intense ambition that Debby had in relation to all the subjects investigated in the laboratory which were stimulating and successful. And yet, each of the workers, it seems, was more important (to Debby) than the work itself.

Nick Carpita – Congratulations, Debby, on this well-deserved tribute by your former students and postdocs, and your life-long colleagues. It was a transformational change in my career when I joined your lab at the DOE (at that time the Energy Research and Development Administration) Plant Research Lab at Michigan State. It was a very exciting time for cellulose biosynthesis. It was also transformational to be amidst so many talented colleagues and mentors. But your lab was exceptional for how we had fun outside of science, from gatherings at your home, to ski trips to Boyne Highlands and ‘Mt. Lansing’, to the Friday excursion to local ‘watering holes’.

It is hard to believe today, but when I joined your lab GDP-Glc was thought to be the substrate of cellulose synthase—and to this day GDP-Glc persists erroneously on many metabolic pathway wall charts as the substrate for cellulose synthesis! You always had a grand challenge for everyone in the lab, and mine was to determine the largest molecule that could freely pass through the cell wall. I remember this as if it were yesterday. One of those Friday afternoons before joining cohorts at a local pub, we plated some sycamore maple cells in liquid culture and plasmolyzed them with mannitol solutions. When I added polyethylene glycol, an osmoticum I used in graduate school to mimic drought, the cell walls collapsed around the plasmolyzed membrane, indicating that the molecule could not pass through—that is, that the wall was acting like a membrane. In the next months, we narrowed down the size range of dextrans that just began to collapse the walls, thus defining the pore size—the freely diffusible space in the wall—to be on the order of 4 nm in diameter, an astonishing value much smaller than expected.
You also encouraged us to explore individual projects that we could take with us when we launched our independent careers. My interests from my undergraduate days were focused on how auxin causes growth, and my experience in your lab refined the question to how auxin alters cell wall structure and composition during growth. You let me purchase some labeled arabinose and xylose to study their uptake and incorporation into cell walls. I found that grass coleoptiles incorporated over 80% of the labeled arabinose in the cell wall as only arabinose and xylose, whereas label from xylose ended up everywhere. These were really puzzling data to me, but you were amused and advised that maybe I should read the well-established literature on the arabinose salvage pathway in plants. I brought these studies with me to my first and only faculty position at Purdue University, where I have spent the remainder of my professorial career in study of the structure and biosynthesis of the cell walls of grasses. And I do read a lot more now.

Takahisa Hayashi – When I met Debby Delmer for the first time at an ASPP meeting in 1983. she said “Hi! Mr. Xyloglucan”. Xyloglucan has been incorporated into cellulose by hydrogen and hydrophobic bonds to develop plant biology. Debby is my mom.

Anita Klein – The importance of having a female role model

When I started college in 1971, there were no tenure-track female faculty in the sciences at the University of Rochester. Although I had classes taught by a couple of women at the university’s Medical School who were adjunct faculty, the first woman assistant professor in Biology wasn’t hired until 1974. In addition, Rochester had nepotism rules that precluded married couples from having faculty positions. I knew there had been some great women scientists –   Barbara McClintock’s work on controlling elements fascinated me –  however, women in academia were few and far between during the first half of 1970s.

When I became a Biochemistry graduate student at Michigan State University, and a research assistant at the Michigan State University/Department of Energy Plant Research Lab (PRL), Debby Delmer was the only woman faculty member in the PRL and one of two women faculty, both assistant professors, in the Biochemistry Department, the other being Pam Fraker. In 1975, four of the sixteen incoming Biochemistry graduate students were women.

Debby Delmer became my co-advisor for my Ph.D. She was my primary role model for how a woman in academic science could have a career. Debby gave me a lot of independence, but I also learned from her examples: i.e. designing experiments with appropriate controls; what happens when expensive new equipment doesn’t perform as promised; how to deal with reviewers’ and editors’ remarks on the manuscript you submitted for publication; and dealing with experimental approaches that failed.  I learned valuable lessons in how to handle some of the challenges Debby encountered as a young faculty member, ranging from running a successful research laboratory, with graduate students and postdocs competing for her attention; coping with challenging colleagues; and dealing with undergraduate students who were not used to having women professors. Not being afraid to speak up was another valuable lesson. She also showed me the importance of having fun (camping, cross-country skiing, ballroom dancing) while doing science.

It was an exciting time to learn and do plant science at the PRL. Faculty treated graduate students and post-docs as future colleagues. Graduate students and post-docs were encouraged to interact with prominent visiting scientists. Many of Debby Delmer’s early post-docs landed good faculty or research positions. I was Debby Delmer’s first Ph.D. student.

These were all important lessons for me to prepare me for joining the Biochemistry Department at the University of New Hampshire in 1985, as the first woman faculty member.   When I retired from UNH in 2020, more than 30% of the faculty in my department were women.

Debby Delmer and Pam Fraker both went on to become National Academy of Science Members. Debby Delmer was the third woman to be elected as President of ASPB, following in the foot- steps of Elizabeth Gannt and Mary Helen Goldsmith.