Craig L. Nessler has been named associate dean for Research in Virginia Tech's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and director of the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station. Nessler has been serving as head of the college's department of plant pathology, physiology, and weed science.

Sharron Quisenberry, Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, said, "Dr. Nessler's experience, vision, and leadership will serve the college and ultimately the public extremely well as we move into a new age of agriculture." She said the college is not only going to look at the success of production agriculture but also how producers can add value to what they are already doing, whether that is through bio-based products, diversification into new crops, or other avenues.

In addition, she said, "We are going to look at how agriculture is tied to human health and nutrition, to the prevention of chronic diseases, and how it can assist communities with economic development. This would include areas such as families, youth at risk, our urban/suburban/rural interface, and rural economic development." She added, "We must bring our expertise in research as well as teaching and Extension together to address problems that face society. Dr. Nessler will help lead those efforts."

Nessler said, "Opportunities in the life sciences are limited only by our imagination. Food, Nutrition, and Health is one of the major initiatives at Virginia Tech. The Agricultural Experiment Station will play a major role in developing the science base for this initiative and quickly move breakthroughs from the laboratory to the field and to our tables."

Interdisciplinary proposals, he said, can and should take a variety of forms from combined field and laboratory studies to large program grants.

"The age of sustaining a viable research program solely from state funds and small grants is past. We must look beyond traditional sources for support, not only for individual grants and contracts, but also through multi-investigator awards that will allow Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Veterinary Medicine to participate in 'big-science'." He added that "big-science" is a multidisciplinary team-science approach that combines the creativity and expertise of individual faculty into programs that can accomplish in years what previously could take an individual scientist a lifetime, he said.

Before coming to Virginia Tech in 2000, Nessler served on the faculty at Indiana University, North Carolina State, and Texas A&M. He also spent a year (1989-90) as a Visiting Research Scientist with the Plant Biotechnology Institute of Canada's National Research Council. More recently, he served the Canadian NRC as an External Program Reviewer of the Plant Biotechnology Institute (2000) and a Biotechnology Program Reviewer (2001).

Nessler said he will use those experiences to help him as associate dean. "It takes a special kind of leadership to enroll faculty in an effort where success depends on nurturing a collective vision. More than two decades as a faculty member makes me appreciate the stresses associated with performing multiple missions in a major land-grant university and how administrators can play a critical role in helping faculty achieve their goals."

He has served as principal investigator or co-investigator on more than $5.4 million in competitive grants, including grants from federal agencies and national foundations, such as the American Cancer Society. His research group was the first to metabolically engineer an increase in a water-soluble vitamin (C) in plants; to regenerate and transform opium poppies and to discover an inexpensive sustainable method for production of the anticancer alkaloid camptothecin from young leaves. His laboratory is now collaborating with other Virginia Tech faculty to describe and manipulate a previously undiscovered vitamin C pathway in crops to improve their productivity, shelf-life and nutritional value.

Nessler earned his B.S. and his M.A. in biology from the College of William and Mary, and his Ph.D. in plant sciences at Indiana University. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Phytopathological Society, the American Society of Plant Biologists, the International Association for Plant Tissue Culture, the International Society for Plant Molecular Biology, and the Phytochemical Society of North America as well as the honor societies Phi Sigma and Sigma Xi.

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