Jan A. D. Zeevaart
Michigan State University
January 5, 1930 - November 25, 2009
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Scientific Discipline: Plant Biology Membership Type:
Member
(elected 1998)
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Jan Zeevart provided the first evidence of the plant hormone florigen, which stimulates buds to flower; of determining how gibberellins control stem elongation; and for describing the metabolic pathway for abscisic acid, the dormancy hormone that helps plants respond to water shortage and other conditions.
Zeevaart was born to a family of farmers in the Netherlands. He first heard the theory of florigen, which had been proposed by plant physiologists, while he was a student of horticulture at Wageningen Agricultural University. He chose this as the topic of his PhD thesis, proving through meticulous grafting experiments that a causative agent (then assumed to be florigen) originates in leaves and stimulates buds to flower. Limited technology prevented scientists from isolating the molecular compound florigen until 2007.
Zeevaart joined the California Institute of Technology from 1960 to 1963. He then taught at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, and performed research with gibberellins. Two years later, in 1965, he moved to the new Plant Research Laboratory at Michigan State University and he began studying the metabolism of abscisic acid. Zeevart remained on the faculty of Michigan State University until his retirement.
In addition to his membership with the National Academy of Sciences, Zeevart was awarded the highest honor of the American Society of Plant Physiologists, the Stephen Hales Prize, in 2000.
