Kansas State University


Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics
141 Chalmers Hall
Manhattan, KS 66506
785-532-6121
785-532-7278 fax
biochem@k-state.edu



Biotechnology Core Facility
206 Burt Hall
785-532-5956
785-532-6297 fax



Biomolecular NMR Facility
37 Chalmers Hall
785-532-2345

The Richard H. and Elizabeth C. Hageman Distinguished Lectureship in Agricultural Biochemistry

Made possible by a generous endowment provided by Dr. and Mrs. Hageman and hosted by the Kansas State University Department of Biochemistry.

About the Hagemans

Richard H. and Elizabeth C. HagemanRichard Harry Hageman grew up in Washington County, Kansas. He obtained his B.S. in Chemistry at K-State and an M.S. at Oklahoma State. Following his experience as a research chemist at experiment stations in Kentucky and Puerto Rico, interrupted by 4 years in the army chemical corps, he returned to graduate school and obtained the Ph. D from the University of California at Berkeley, with D.I. Arnon in 1954. He rose through the ranks at the University of Illinois and in 1984 became Professor Emeritus.

Professor Hageman was recipient of several awards, from the American Society of Agronomy (Crop Science), the American Society of Plant Physiologists (Hoagland), the American Chemical Society (Spencer) and Funke Seed Corn Co. (Funke). In his research, professor Hageman successfully struck a balance between fundamental laboratory research into plant metabolism and application of biochemistry to plant breeding through field studies.

When Richard Hageman was nominated for the first Hoagland award it was pointed out that his distinct contribution was "his formulation, early in his career, that rate-limiting enzymes could be identified and used as a basis to select for specific traits which lead to higher crop yields. This singular focus, which resulted from and contributed to his research on nitrate reductase, is so basic and now so readily understood that it is taken for granted in all of plant science." His major contributions to understanding of plant nitrogen metabolism included the finding that nitrate reductase is an inducible enzyme, and identification of nitrate reductase as a distinct dependent on ferredoxin in chloroplasts.

Elizabeth C. Hageman obtained her B.S. and M.S. degrees at Oklahoma State University. She worked for many years in biochemistry with distinguished scientists including C.H. Li at Berkeley, and G. Hanson and W. Ogren at Illinois. With Professor Hanson, she was involved in pioneering work on in vitro culture of bovine mammary gland tissue.

Richard H. and Elizabeth C. Hageman were married for more than 61 years, until his death in December 2002. They have three children and a baker's dozen of grandchildren.

Hageman Lectures

Date
Speaker
Lecture/colloquium titles
2012

October 24-25

 Jeffrey Palmer
Indiana University, Bloomington
  • "Mitochondrial Sex in Plants: Mitochondrial Fusion Drives Horizontal Gene Transfer and Gene Conversion in the Devil's Playground."
  • "Plants as a model ‘system’ for comparative genomics, evolutionary biology, domestication and discovery research"
2012

Apr. 18-19

 James Birchler
University of Missouri, Columbia
  • "Development and Potential Applications of Engineered Minichromosomes in Plants"
  • "Food in the Future: harvesting the fruits of natural and synthetic genetic diversity"
2010

Nov. 3-4

 Richard Amasino
University of Wisconsin, Madison
  • "Memories of winter: vernalization is an environmentally induced epigenetic switch."
  • "Biochemistry teaching and earth history"
2009

Nov. 16-17

 May R. Berenbaum
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
  • "Gut reactions—how insects eat plants"
  • "BSI—the case of the disappearing bees?"
2008
Nov. 5-6
 Dale E. Bauman
Cornell University
  • "Regulation of Fat Synthesis: Nutrigenomics and the Low-Fat Milk Syndrome"
  • "Bioactive Fatty Acids in Milk Fat: Are all trans Fatty Acids the Same?"
2007

Oct. 24-25

 Elizabeth Vierling
University of Arizona
  • "S-Nitrosoglutathione reductase: A new player in nitrosative stress"
  • "Genes and gene networks in the response of plants to high temperature"
2006

Nov. 8-9

 Catharine Ross
Pennsylvania State University
  • "Regulating a key regulator of differentiation - how is the production and metabolism of retonoic acid controlled?"
  • "Vitamin A status = why it still matters"
2005

Oct. 12-13

 Steven Tanksley
Cornell University
  • "The Molecular Basis of Quantitative Trait Variation: Examples from the Tomato"
  • "Use of Wild Genetic Variation in Plant Improvement"
2004

Oct. 27-28

Michael Thomashow
Michigan State University

  • "Gene Regulons and Regulatory Circuits Involved in Plant Cold Acclimation"
  • "Improving Plant Abiotic Stress Tolerance through Genetic Engineering"
2003

Oct. 29-30

 Bruce Hammock
University of California, Davis
  • "The 'Juvenile Hormone' of Humans: Biochemistry of Epoxyeicosanoids and Their Role in Disease Treatment"
  • "Potential and Problems with Recombinant Baculoviruses in Insect Control"
2002

Oct. 23-24

 Christopher Somerville
Stanford University, Carnegie Institution, Department of Plant Biology
  • "Genetic Dissection of Cell Wall Synthesis"
  • "Plant Biology in the Functional Genomics Era & Genetic Analysis of Early Embryo Development in Arabidopsis"
2001

Apr. 30-May 1

Virginia Walbot
Stanford University, Department of Biological Sciences

  • "Red, Purple, and Blue - How Plants Show Their Colors"
  • "Maize Gene Discovery with ESTs and Mu Transposon Tagging"
2000

Apr. 20-21

Brian Larkins
University of Arizona, Department of Plant Sciences

  • "Molecular Genetic Approaches to Developing Quality Protein Maize"
  • "Plant Genomics and Genetic Engineering in Agriculture"
1999

Apr. 15-16

Maarten J. Chrispeels
University of California - San Diego, Department of Biology

  • "Aquaporins: Their Roles in Plant Growth and Development"
  • "The Use of Lectins and Enzyme Inhibitors For Genetic Engineering"
1998

Apr. 15-16

 Eugene W. Nester
University of Washington, Department of Microbiology
  • "Agrobacterium: A Natural Genetic Engineer of Higher Plants"
  • "Analysis and Implication of Inter-kingdom DNA Transfer"