ASPB Pioneer Member Profile.pdf

Daniel Cosgrove spent his career following his curiosity in plant biology, starting with encouragement from his mom and mail-order science kits as a child. He pursued research projects in plant biology throughout his undergraduate and graduate studies, including explorations of plant growth, photoperiodism, and cell wall extensibility. As a professor at Penn State, he built a research team that delved into various facets of plant cell growth, discovering wall-loosening proteins called expansins.

Cosgrove considers his most important contributions to plant science to be:

Developing new ways to understand and measure wall stress relaxation in living cells
Identifying expansin proteins as the protein catalysts of 'acid growth' and wall stress relaxation
* Reopening the question of primary cell wall structure and the molecular basis for wall expansive growth

He became a member of ASPP (now ASPB) in 1978 and served as President during the transition to ASPB. The Society impacted his career by providing a scientific community, networking opportunities, and advocacy for research funding. Cosgrove advises individuals starting their career in plant science to "know thyself" and understand where their talents lie, and to be open to new experiences and collaborations.