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Virginia Ferris used a microscope when she began her career as a scientist. While the microscope remains an old friend, she now conducts research using technology made possible by genomics. A world-renowned nematologist, Ferris was among researchers who used molecular markers to identify genes that provide resistance to the soybean cyst nematode. (Photo by Tom Campbell) |
On her desk, Virginia Ferris has a state-of-the-art computer, its operating system concealed within a large flat-panel display monitor. It's just one symbol of how far technology has come during a research career that spans several decades.
Blazing a trail
The first woman appointed to the Purdue Agriculture faculty, Ferris helped pave the way for women in agricultural research. She is now joined on the faculty by a diverse group of women who are leading researchers in food, agriculture and natural resources.
A nematologist, Ferris studies the soybean cyst nematode, a destructive plant parasite. In the early part of her career, she conducted research under a microscope, often from the spare bedroom in her home.
"Even after the advent of molecular methods, you had to grow large numbers of nematodes to find the molecular sequence you wanted," she says from her office in Purdue's Whistler Hall of Agricultural Research, where her lab contains the most modern scientific equipment. "Discoveries in molecular biology now make it possible to get vast amounts of DNA out of a single nematode." Though her current research no longer requires observation of the tiny worms—just extraction of their DNA—she still keeps the microscope, a device that she had been fascinated with in her youth.
"When you compare what scientists find at the molecular level today with conclusions they based solely on microscope observations back then, many of their early conclusions still hold true today," she says. After years of research that combined traditional science methods and advances made possible by genomics, Ferris, along with fellow researchers who included her husband, the late John Ferris, Jamal Faghihi and Rick Vierling, identified genes in soybeans that provided resistance to the cyst nematode, a pest that has cost farmers millions in crop losses. The Purdue-patented technology, licensed as CystX®, is now commercially available in many soybean varieties and was widely planted this past growing season. The research earned the group the 2001 Purdue Agriculture Team Award, which honors the achievements of faculty and staff who collaborate on interdisciplinary teams.
Ferris' groundbreaking research was one more step in a groundbreaking career.
After high school, she packed her bags and a consuming interest in biology and left small-town Kansas for Wellesley College on the East Coast. At the all-women's college, she found a competitive academic environment, female professors to serve as role models and the self-confidence to more than hold her own when she entered Cornell University as the only female incoming graduate student in plant pathology.
Her years at Cornell shaped both her professional and personal life. She earned a Ph.D. in plant pathology, joined the Cornell faculty as an assistant professor and began research in nematology. She also married John Ferris, her former lab partner, who was husband, colleague, major collaborator and best friend until his death in 2000.
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