Mary-Dell Chilton
Mary-Dell Chilton (born February 2, 1939, in Indianapolis, Indiana) is one of the founders of modern plant biotechnology.[1] While on faculty there in the late 1970s and early 1980s, she led a collaborative research study that produced the first transgenic plants.She and her collaborators produced the first genetically modified plants using Agrobacterium carrying the disarmed Ti plasmid (1983).For her work with Agrobacterium tumefaciens, she has been recognized with an honorary doctorate from the University of Louvaine, the John Scott Medal from the City of Philadelphia, membership in the United States National Academy of Sciences, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Sciences from the Franklin Institute.[10] In 2020, she was one of eight women featured in "The Only One in the Room" display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.