Diener honored as UMBI's first
Distinguished University Professor

April 23, 1998--Growing up in his native Switzerland, Theodor (Ted) O. Diener was fascinated by small living things. "I loved science," he recalls, "but it was the worms and flies -- not the big creatures -- that most interested me.

That interest in nature's smallest elements ultimately led to one of Diener's major discoveries as a scientist and researcher. In the early 1970s, while working at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Plant Virology Laboratory in Beltsville, Diener unexpectedly found the viroid -- the smallest agent of infectious disease -- while studying viruses. This, and subsequent research, has led to the development of diagnostic tools that can detect diseased seed potatoes and thus save crops from ruin throughout the world.

Because of this work and other significant scholarly achievement, along with "outstanding contributions to the intellectual life of UMBI," Diener will receive the Institute's first Distinguished University Professorship. The presentation will take place at the conclusion of a day-long symposium in his honor on Friday, April 24, at the Inn and Conference Center, University of Maryland University College. Entitled "From Viroids to Prions," the free public symposium is part of the spring lecture series of UMBI's Center for Agricultural Biotechnology and features speakers from around the country and the world.

"Ted's selection as our first Distinguished University Professor is especially fitting," says Rita Colwell, UMBI president. "His approach to research, along with his dedication and humanity, have contributed significantly to our understanding of plant diseases, with implications for beginning to solve certain diseases that affect humans as well. His ten years at UMBI have greatly enriched our scientific community."

Known among his colleagues for his "doubt the accepted dogma" approach to science, Diener traces his willingness to go against "common wisdom" to some of his earliest academic experiences. "When I was in the third grade, my teacher told my mother that I would never learn division and multiplication. Later, when I was studying for my doctorate at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, my professor thought my best career possibility was probably as a salesman of insecticides." Diener successfully set out to disprove the expectations of both teachers.

Indeed, after he received his doctorate, he turned down business prospects for a post as a plant pathologist at an experimental station in Switzerland. During his first day on the job, he identified rust fungus in a cherry tree leaf -- a finding his boss originally disputed because the fungus was more common in the Mediterranean and hadn't been seen in Switzerland for over 100 years. The course of his scientific career was set. As he notes, "Too many scientists tend to think everything has to fit into present knowledge. The accepted dogma can be a deterrent to discovery."

Although Diener's work won him a tenured position in Switzerland, his "sense of adventure," he says, propelled him across the Atlantic to a position at the University of Rhode Island and later to Washington State University, where he did key research on fruit tree viruses. In 1959, the U.S. Department of Agriculture established 20 new pioneering laboratories, including one in plant virology. Diener was asked to head up the lab's work on the mechanism of pathogenesis in viral-infested plants. He readily agreed. "When the laboratory was set up," he recalls, "we were not expected to publish for five years. We could sit and think and read and didn't have to worry about the continuation of the next grant." It was here that the potato spindle tuber viroid -- a cellular intruder that had, in the past, devastated potato crops here and abroad -- was discovered.

Since 1988, Diener, a Beltsville resident, has held a joint appointment at UMBI, in the Center for Agricultural Biotechnology, and at the University of Maryland at College Park, where he also holds the post of Distinguished University Professor. When he is not involved in scientific work, Diener takes time to pursue his other passion: flying. A licensed pilot since the age of 16, he flies his own Cessna 150. Diener and his wife Sybil use the aircraft for vacation trips and to visit their sons in Chicago. He even does his own maintenance, with the help of a friend who is an electronics engineer.

As Diener reflects upon his career, he expresses concern about the current trend for young scientists to become "very specialized, very focused. The pressure to publish is great." As Diener notes, "Scientists need the freedom to be wrong, too. Sometimes a wrong hypothesis -- as we discovered when we were studying viruses that turned out to be viroids -- can get you into the right area."