Marc Van Montagu (left) and Jozef Schell (right)

Its origin goes back to the work of Marc Van Montagu and Jeff Schell at the University of Ghent who were among the first to assemble a practical system for genetic engineering of plants. They developed a vector system for transferring foreign genes into the plant genome, by using the Ti plasmid of Agrobacterium tumefaciens. They also found a way to make plant cells resistant to the antibiotic kanamycin by transferring a bacterial neomycin phosphotransferase gene into the plant genome. PGS was the first company (in 1985) to develop genetically engineered (tobacco) plants with insect tolerance by expressing genes encoding for insecticidal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt).

History

The company was founded in 1982 by Marc Van Montagu and Jeff Schell who worked at the University of Ghent, Belgium. In 1996 the company was acquired by AgrEvo. In 2000, Aventis CropScience was formed through a merger of AgrEvo and Rhône-Poulenc Agro. In 2002, Bayer CropScience is formed through Bayer's acquisition of Aventis CropScience.

References

• Hofte H, de Greve H, Seurinck J, Jansens S, Mahillon J, Ampe C, Vandekerckhove J, Vanderbruggen H, van Montagu M, Zabeau M, et al., Structural and functional analysis of a cloned delta endotoxin of Bacillus thuringiensis berliner 1715, Eur J Biochem. 1986 Dec 1;161(2):273-80.
• Leemans J, Ti to Tomato, Tomato to Market: A decade of plant biotechnology, Bio/Technology, vol. 11, March 1993.
• Vaeck, M., A. Reynaerts, H. Hofte, S. Jansens, M. De Beuckeleer, C. Dean, M. Zabeau, M. Van Montagu & J. Leemans. 1987, Transgenic plants protected from insect attack, Nature 328: 33-37.

See also

• CropDesign
• Flanders Interuniversity Institute of Biotechnology (VIB)
• FlandersBio
• Marc Zabeau

External links

• Bayer CropScience
• Marc Van Montagu
• Institute of Plant Biotechnology for Developing Countries