55 Years of Service | James Van Etten

Mary Jane Bruce Author

11/10/2021 Added

176 Plays

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James Van Etten, the William B. Allington Distinguished Professor of Plant Pathology, reflects on 55 years of service to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

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[00:00:00.000](upbeat music)
[00:00:07.030]I was actually hired to work
[00:00:09.380]on the biochemistry of fungi at Nebraska.
[00:00:12.480]I shared a lab with a woman by the name of Anne Vetiver.
[00:00:15.940]She was interested in looking
[00:00:17.760]for viruses of bacteria as biological control agents,
[00:00:23.510]and she ended up finding this virus
[00:00:26.700]that turned out to be worthless
[00:00:29.370]as a biological control agent,
[00:00:31.740]but as a virus was very unique,
[00:00:34.340]and I ended up spending part of my career
[00:00:37.760]working with her and characterizing that virus.
[00:00:41.120]Then in about 1980,
[00:00:43.900]I had a conversation with the former director
[00:00:47.090]of the School of Biological Sciences, Russ Mites,
[00:00:50.250]and we remember exactly where we were standing
[00:00:52.740]when he'd said something, I knew something,
[00:00:55.420]and that conversation led to an experiment
[00:00:58.440]which led to the discovery of the first
[00:01:01.370]of the larger giant viruses
[00:01:04.340]and to put that into perspective,
[00:01:06.860]something like HIV, which causes AIDS,
[00:01:11.220]has about 10 or 12 genes.
[00:01:13.750]The viruses we discovered have around 400
[00:01:17.180]and the biggest ones now have over about 2,500 genes.
[00:01:22.810]So it's an amazing expansion
[00:01:26.940]of the way people think about viruses.
[00:01:29.636](inspirational music)
[00:01:33.160]Well, I think nowadays, it's pretty obvious
[00:01:35.650]with COVID-19 being a major issue,
[00:01:40.080]by the way, I had Polio as a kid,
[00:01:42.040]so I know, now, that's a disease
[00:01:44.280]that's been essentially wiped off the continent
[00:01:47.830]and it's clear that viruses play a huge role
[00:01:51.760]in the biology of the earth.
[00:01:55.720]Now, most people only know about viruses that infect humans,
[00:01:59.910]but viruses infect all living organisms.
[00:02:02.977](inspirational music)
[00:02:06.560]When I started, the University of Nebraska
[00:02:09.330]was primarily a teaching institution.
[00:02:12.150]Now it's a major research university,
[00:02:16.410]has a lot of faculty getting external grants.
[00:02:19.820]And to put that in perspective,
[00:02:21.340]I was on the research council
[00:02:23.420]in the late sixties and early seventies,
[00:02:27.150]and I remember talking to
[00:02:29.076]the equivalent of the Vice Chancellor for Research,
[00:02:32.730]and he told me his total budget
[00:02:36.540]was $40,000 a year.
[00:02:39.080]And he had to hire a secretary out of that.
[00:02:41.820]I don't know what the numbers are now,
[00:02:43.990]but it certainly expanded.
[00:02:46.855](inspirational music)
[00:02:50.440]I was the third person
[00:02:51.630]in the history of the university to become a member.
[00:02:54.940]The first one was a fellow by the name of Myron Brackey,
[00:02:57.390]who was my colleague for many years in Plant Pathology.
[00:03:01.410]And when he was called,
[00:03:04.370]he was elected in the early 1970s,
[00:03:08.360]and I had an office right next to him.
[00:03:10.460]And when he got called, he didn't say anything.
[00:03:13.920]Now, contrast that when I finally found out
[00:03:17.290]that I'd gotten elected,
[00:03:18.280]I think everybody in the building heard about it
[00:03:19.990]within 30 seconds because I was so excited about it.
[00:03:23.280](laughs)

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55 Years of Service | James Van Etten

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