Background

Folke Karl Skoog was born on July 15, 1908, in Halland, Sweden. His father Karl Gustav Skoog worked as an agronomist (a branch of agriculture dealing with field-crop production and soil management), while his mother Sigrid (Person) Skoog stayed home to raise her three sons.

Education

Skoog earned his Bachelor of Science degree from California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) in 1932. He continued his graduate studies at Cal Tech which was then the premier institute for plant hormone research. His professors included Frits Went, who discovered a class of plant growth hormones called auxins. Skoog earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in biology from Cal Tech in 1936, then continued his studies as a post-doctorate fellow at the University of California at Berkeley.

Skoog earned many honorary doctorate degrees throughout the years, including an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree from Lund University in 1956.

Career

Skoog accepted a teaching and research position at Harvard University in 1937, where he worked until 1941, when he moved to Johns Hopkins University to serve as an assistant professor until 1944.

Skoog took a hiatus from his plant research for two years during World War II to work as a chemist for the Defense Department in Washington. In 1946, he resumed his teaching and research career at Washington University in St. Louis, but left after only three months. He was hired in 1947 as an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where over the next thirty-two years he would earn his reputation as one of the world’s foremost botanists. Skoog thrived at the Wisconsin University and in 1949 was appointed as a full professor.

In the early 1950s, the only known plant growth hormones were auxins. Skoog, who had in the 1930s performed pioneering research in the field of auxins, was experimenting with tobacco tumor tissue when he realized that he could promote growth even in the absence of auxins. Research on the tobacco tumor tissues led to Skoog’s discovery in 1954 of a new class of growth hormones, called cytokinins. These hormones are produced in plant roots and travel up the stem to leaves and fruit. Skoog’s discovery was initially met with skepticism. Many botanists thought that auxins were the only hormones responsible for plant growth. Skoog, however, proved that cytokinins did exist, and he also showed that by manipulating the levels of auxins and cytokinins, he could promote the growth of only roots, only shoots, or both. His finding revolutionized horticulture by enabling scientists to control plant propagation. Cytokinins are also used to prevent green vegetables from yellowing.

While building his reputation worldwide as a top researcher, Skoog was building his reputation back home as everyone’s favorite professor. Although Skoog taught only graduate students, he took a strong interest in the education of undergraduates. He formed a committee in the mid-1960s to develop what became one of the strongest undergraduate biology programs in the country. In 1962 he developed a medium that promoted plant growth faster and more effectively than older media.

Skoog retired in 1979 as a professor emeritus, giving occasional lectures and reviewing scientific papers for several years afterward. Additionally, he served as a visiting physiologist at the University of Hawaii and Pineapple Research Institute, as well as an associate physiologist at National Institute of Health and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

Achievements

• Skoog discovered a new class of growth hormones cytokinins in 1954. The discovery and subsequent studies of cytokinins provided new insight into plant growth and paved the way toward research in biotechnology, or applied biological science, for decades. Another of Skoog’s major scientific contributions came in 1962, when he developed a medium that promoted plant growth faster and more effectively than older media.
  
  In 1954, Skoog earned the prestigious Stephen Hales Prize from the American Society of Plant Physiologists. He was awarded the National Medal of Science, his most prestigious honor, in 1991. In addition, the Cell Culture Association honored him with its Life Membership Award in 1991. That same year Skoog won Cosimo Ridolfi Medal, and in 1992, the Tissue Culture World Congress gave him the Distinguished Life Achievement Award. He also earned John Ericsson Medal, in 1992 as well.

Works

• book

  • Plant Growth Substances 1951

Membership

Skoog was a chair of the physiological section of the Botany Society of America, he was also a vice president and president of the American Society of Plant Physiologists, as well as a president of the Society of Developmental Biology. Skoog was a vice president and president of the American Society of Genetic Physiologists and honorary life member and vice president of the International Plant Growth Substances Association. Skoog was regarded as a member of such organizations as the American Society of Biological Chemists, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina and the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences. In addition, he was an honorary life member of the Tissue Culture Association and the Russian Society of Plant Physiologists.

Personality

Throughout his busy career, Skoog always managed to find time for recreation. Colleagues remember him taking afternoon swims in a campus lake and playing touch football with fellow professors and students. On weekends, he often retreated to the family cottage in rural Door County, Wisconsin, where he enjoyed boating, swimming, fishing, and deer hunting.

Quotes from others about the person

• "[Skoog] had an intuitive feel for what the growing plants were telling him. He could sense when the data were telling him something important." - Eldon Newcomb
  
  "He was warm and patient with his students. He formed a close relationship with all of them." - Eldon Newcomb

Connections

Skoog married Birgit Anna Lisa Bergner on January 31, 1947. Birgit had been trained as an engineer, but gave up her career ambitions to raise their only child, Karin (Skoog) Shepard.

Father:

Karl Gustav Skoog

Mother:

Sigrid (Person) Skoog

Spouse:

Birgit Anna Lisa Berner

child:

Karin Skoog