Jozef Schell

Jozef Stefaan "Jeff", Baron Schell was a Belgian molecular biologist.
Schell studied zoology and microbiology at the University of Ghent, Belgium. From 1967 to 1995, he worked as a professor at the university. From 1978 to 2000 he was director and head of the Max Planck Institute for [Plant Breeding Research] at the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Cologne, Germany. He received many prizes, among which were the Francqui Prize in 1979, the Wolf [Prize in Agriculture] in 1990, and the Japan Prize in 1998, which he shared with Marc [Van Montagu]. He also was appointed Professeur Honoraire, Collège de France, Paris in 1998. He was granted the title of Baron by Baudouin of Belgium.
Schell was a pioneer in genetics who focused on the interaction between plants and soil bacteria. Along with his colleague, Marc Van Montagu, Jeff Schell discovered the Horizontal [gene transfer|gene transfer] mechanism between Agrobacterium and plants, which resulted in the development of methods to alter Agrobacterium into an efficient delivery system for gene engineering in plants. Besides being a prominent scientist, in 1982 he co-founded, with Marc Van Montagu, the successful biotech company Plant Genetic Systems Inc., now part of Bayer CropScience.