Luis Rafael Herrera-Estrella, the President's Distinguished Professor of Plant Genomics within Texas Tech’s Department of Plant & Soil Science, has been named a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO).
The group touts a community of more than 1,900 leading scientists from a wide variety of fields, including cell biology, cancer, vaccine development and machine learning. EMBO will formally welcome 100 new members and 20 new associate members at a meeting of the EMBO community this fall in Heidelberg, Germany.
“The new EMBO members have made immense contributions to fundamental life science research, and, in many cases, their work has paved the way for innovations that have improved lives and livelihoods around the world,” said EMBO Director Maria Leptin in a news release. “As EMBO marks its 60th anniversary, we celebrate the pivotal roles played by the EMBO membership in strengthening international life science research. I send my warmest congratulations to all those elected.”
Glen Ritchie, professor of crop physiology and chair of the Department of Plant & Soil Science, added, “We are pleased to see Dr. Herrera-Estrella honored for his international impact through this invitation. Luis was already an internationally recognized scientist when he conducted his PhD research in Ghent, Belgium in the 1980s, and his accomplishments in Europe, Mexico, and the United States place him in select company at the forefront of the worldwide plant biology community today.”
Herrera-Estrella, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a National Academy of Inventors Fellow, leads Texas Tech’s Institute of Genomics for Crop Abiotic Stress Tolerance. The high-profile IGCAST research group examines how plants adapt to thrive in the presence of environmental stresses such as extreme heat and cold, drought and in the presence of brackish water sources.
Tech’s IGCAST scientific team was established in 2020 with a mission of conducting top-ranked research and graduate education on the use of functional and population genomics to understand the molecular mechanisms that determine resilience of crops and related wild species to adverse environmental stresses in the era of climate change.
One of the top plant molecular biologists in the world, Herrera-Estrella is known and respected worldwide for his work in cotton genomics, having earned the distinction in 2015 as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Biotechnology by Scientific American. He previously served as the director and full professor of the National Laboratory of Genomics for Biodiversity (LANGEBIO) in Guanajuato, Mexico.
Herrera-Estrella earned his doctoral and postdoctoral degrees in genetics from the State University of Ghent, Belgium. He received his master’s degree in genetics and molecular biology from the Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, and his bachelor’s degree from Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biológicas Instituto Politécnico Nacional.
CONTACT: Clint Krehbiel, Dean, Davis College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources, Texas Tech University at (806) 742-2808 or Clint.Krehbiel@ttu.edu
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