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 nitrite reductase as a distinct enzyme 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

Speaker

Lecture/colloquium titles

2022

April 6-7

Daniel Voytas
Director, Center for Precision Plant Genomics, University of Minnesota, Department of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development
  • "Overcoming Bottlenecks in Plant Gene Editing"
  • "Gene Editing Ushers in a New Era in Plant Agriculture"

2019

April 10-11

Harry Klee
Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida
  • "The chemistry of tomato flavor: Integrating genetics and biochemistry to elaborate a complex phenopype"
  • "Rethinking plant breeding to produce healthy food crops that consumers actually want to eat"

2017

April 26-27

Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Janelia Research Campus
  • "Emerging fluorescence technology to study cell architecture and dynamics"
    Watch the replay.
  • "Imaging cell survival under starvation: role of lipid droplets, mitochondria and autophagy"
    Watch the replay.

2016

February 24

Douglas C. Rees
Investigator, Howared Hughes Medical Institute,
California Institute of Technology, Division of Chemnistry and Chemical Engineering

2015

May 11

Randy Schekman
2013 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine,
University of California, Berkeley, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology

2014

November 19-20

Elliot Meyerowitz
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute,
California Institute of Technology, Division of Biology and Biological Engineering
  • "Physical as well as Chemical Signals Control Plant Development"
  • "Computational Morphodynamics: an Approach to the Study of Plant Growth and Development"
    Watch the lecture and colloquium replays.
    (K-State sign-in required.)

2013

October 16

Kary B. Mullis
1993 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry

2012

October 24-25

Jeffrey Palmer
Indiana University, Bloomington, Department of Biology
  • "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

April 18-19

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

2010

November 3-4

Richard Amasino
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute,
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Department of Biochemistry
  • "Memories of winter: vernalization is an environmentally induced epigenetic switch."
  • "Biochemistry teaching and earth history"

2009

November 16-17

May R. Berenbaum
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Department of Entomology
  • "Gut reactions—how insects eat plants"
  • "BSI—the case of the disappearing bees?"

2008

November 5-6

Dale E. Bauman
Cornell University, Department of Animal Science
  • "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

October 24-25

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

2006

November 8-9

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

2005

October 12-13

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

2004

October 27-28

Michael Thomashow
Michigan State University, Plant Research Laboratory
  • "Gene Regulons and Regulatory Circuits Involved in Plant Cold Acclimation"
  • "Improving Plant Abiotic Stress Tolerance through Genetic Engineering"

2003

October 29-30

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

2002

October 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

April 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

April 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

April 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

April 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"