Bot 612 David Webb – Overview-05

Science moves forward incrementally most of the time. Every now and then a real visionary arises. He or she is able to see the road ahead despite all of the fog that obscures the future. Haberlandt was such a person. I want you to see how he was able to deduce the path of plant cell & tissue culture research despite the failure of his experiments. I also want you to see the underpinnings of his hypotheses. These seem dated but they were cutting edge at his time and he really took these hypotheses to their limits in his experiments and his predictions. Also note the limitations he faced in setting up his experiments and his self criticism! You will be aided in this by the paper of Krikorian & Berquam. I also want you to read a recent review on somatic embryogenesis of conifers and relate these successes and failures to the major variables identified by Haberlandt.

Science may also advance via “enlightened serendipity” and I will talk about this in relation my own experiences.

You should read the articles in the order that I recommend. The illustrations for the articles may be found in separate files. I will indicate these below. I have provided some “study guides” to assist you in discerning the most important aspects of the articles.

There is a Primer on Plant Cell Culture that you should read before reading the article by Zoglauer et al. There is also a link in the primer to a good website on Plant Cell Culture. It might be helpful to consult this before reading Krikorian and Berquam as well.

Articles, Images, Guides & Essay Assignment

1] The File: Bot 612 Essay Assignment-DTW contains the assignment for these readings should be read before reading anything else!

2] Read the Study Guides for the Haber and Krikorian papers as you read the articles.

3A] Haber.pdf – This is the translated paper by Haberlandt.

3B] Habe pic.pdf – Figures from Haberlandt’s Paper

4] Primer on Plant Cell Culture

5] Krikorian.pdf – Article by Krikorian & Berquam concerning Haberlandt’s Paper.

6A] ConiferTC.pdf – Article by Zoglauer et al. on Somatic Embryogenesis of Conifers

6B] FOLDER ConiferTissueCultFigs (Figures PlateA PlateB PlateC for the article by Zoglauer et al.)

I will probably start by asking you to discuss Haberlandt’s experiments and move on to his hypotheses. Then we might discuss how his ideas have panned out and why his experiments failed or succeeded based on contemporary knowledge. Then we can discuss the successes and failures of conifer embryogenesis and see if any of this makes sense. I will provide some personal insights on tissue culture research and key developmental concepts.