Founder, Director of Research and Development
Dr. Elizabeth Hood has worked in plant biology for more than 40 years, generating 80+ publications and patents. Her groundbreaking work developed the agrobacterial strain EHA101, which is now used globally for gene transfer into plants for crop improvement. In her work at Pioneer Hi-Bred International and ProdiGene, she developed the first commercialized product from a plant production system, and led an internationally recognized transgenic plant research group. Later, she served as a cell biology program director at the National Science Foundation.
A Closer LookIna Washington University laboratory, on a project headed by a legendary female biotech pioneer who would eventually wind up in the National Academy of Sciences, Elizabeth Hood found herself among ten über-eager, highly competitive graduate students and post-doc candidates – each with something to prove.
But instead of throwing herself into the dogfight for attention, Elizabeth threw herself into a project that no one else wanted to work on. Little did Elizabeth know that the results of Dr. Mary-Dell Chilton’s and her efforts would revolutionize the biotech industry. Their creation? EHA101, a helper strain derivative of A281 that has been used by thousands of brilliant minds in laboratories around the world ever since.
Countless projects, papers, publications and patents later, Dr. Elizabeth Hood – as she’s been known for decades – remains exclusively focused on solutions which will change the world.
What’s more, she never been more excited about where her journey has led to – being one of GreenLab’s co-founders and working “Zoom-shoulder-to-Zoom-shoulder” with her acclaimed colleague and partner for the past 30 years, Dr. John Howard – of whom, she said, “We’re good buds, and we’ve got each other’s backs."
Together, Dr. Hood, Dr. Howard and the rest of their team are thrilled with manufacturing proteins by putting select enzymes into corn, and turning our nation’s cornfields into our planet’s protein factories – with a patented approach that drastically reduces the need for other expensive and less sustainable processes.
After all these years, her career-long mission hasn’t changed since her days on Dr. Chilton’s team. “I want to solve a global environmental problem. And here at GreenLab, we’ve made a lot of progress, and our goal is clearly within sight.”