Friday, October 17, 2008 10:47 PM CDT
EIU distinguished alumnus researches corn-based carinogenic fungi
By NATHANIEL WEST, Staff Writer
nwest@jg-tc.com
BATON ROUGE, La. — This year’s class of Eastern Illinois University Distinguished Alumni includes a man who does battle with a cancer-causing fungus.
Kenneth Damann, class of 1966, is a Louisiana State University professor and researcher in the areas of plant pathology and crop physiology whose work focuses on a type of fungi that preys on corn and produces a highly carcinogenic toxin that has been linked to liver cancer.
A Charleston native, Damann will be recognized Saturday during the EIU Alumni Association awards dinner as part of this weekend’s Homecoming festivities.
“I’m very pleased” with the award, Damann said from his cell phone while en route to Charleston Thursday.
“I remember fondly my years in Charleston,” he also said, noting that his father, the late Kenneth Damann Sr., was head of the botany department at EIU for many years.
“That’s where I got an interest in (this) area,” Damann said.
A 1962 graduate of Charleston High School, Damann earned a master’s degree from the University of Arkansas in 1968 and a doctorate from Michigan State University in 1974. That same year, he joined the faculty at LSU.
Damann spends most of his time researching fungi that make what are called aflatoxins — one of the most carcinogenic of all naturally occurring substances.
These fungi are known to affect corn, cotton seed, peanuts and tree nuts, Damann said. While crops in the Midwest are attacked on rare occasion, such fungi are more commonly seen in corn grown in the Gulf South, from Texas to North Carolina, said Damann.
The Food and Drug Administration limits the presence of this fungus to 20 parts per billion, he said.
“So we’re interested in trying to control this organism in the field,” said Damann.
To that end, his team is experimenting with another naturally occurring fungus that does not make aflatoxins. If applied to a field, these benign fungi “compete with (the) toxigenic forms and suppress them” both in the soil and on the plants themselves, Damann said.
“It appears to be an effective strategy, and we’re trying to commercialize it.”
His work is supported by the Louisiana Soybean and Grain Research and Promotion Board, and Damann’s team also has partnered with researchers in Thailand.
He said the key concept is “biological control” — inhibiting toxigenic forms of fungi.
In addition to his recognition this weekend as one of the latest Distinguished Alumni, Damann is slated to speak with EIU undergraduate students about his work at ISU.
“I’m interested in trying to establish a pipeline of interested students to work in plant pathology,” he said.
Damann and his wife, Catherine, live near the ISU campus in Baton Rouge. They have four children and three grandchildren.
Contact Nathaniel West at nwest@jg-tc.com or 238-6860.
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arab38 wrote on Oct 17, 2008 7:42 AM: