Scott Strobel had an inspiring teacher from very early on—his own father, Gary Strobel, a renowned plant pathologist at Montana State University. From age 2, Scott would spend days with his father in the biology laboratory. After majoring in biochemistry at Brigham Young University, Scott earned his doctorate at the California Institute of Technology studying site-specific cleavage of genomic DNA. His current interest in the biochemistry of RNA gelled during postdoctoral work in the University of Colorado at Boulder laboratory of Thomas R. Cech, now president of HHMI.

		View Slide Show Led by HHMI professor Scott Strobel, Yale undergraduates collected endophytes-symbiotic bacteria and fungi-in the Sandoval Lake area and the Heath River area along the border between Peru and Bolivia. Once back in New Haven, the students spent the summer analyzing their samples for bioactivity. Photos: Courtesy of Strobel Lab

Though their styles differ, his father continues to inspire. Now 69 years old, Gary Strobel is lean and weathered with close-cropped hair. Unlike Scott, 43, whose experiments never require him to leave the laboratory, Gary's ventures into the biochemistry of natural products regularly take him to distant places. Several times each year, he travels to rainforests and other biologically diverse locations across the planet in search of endophytes—bacteria and fungi that live symbiotically on plants. The fascinating biology of these organisms led Scott to build his Yale course around them, and to persuade his father to lead the Amazon expedition.

Many endophytes produce natural chemicals that inhibit the growth of organisms potentially toxic to the plant host or provide it with some other evolutionary advantage. Endophytes' biological activity has also served human ends, providing a source of chemicals for pest control products, for example, and for many medicines. From cancer therapies to antibiotics, about 40 percent of all prescription drugs derive from natural compounds. Yet, very few endophytes on the Earth's 300,000 plant species have ever been characterized, even though nearly all plants serve as host to one or more bioactive microbes.

The senior Strobel has identified scores of previously unknown endophytes. Several have proven valuable, among them a fungus that produces the anti-cancer drug paclitaxel, more popularly known by its brand name Taxol, and a fungus that generates volatile chemicals that have proven useful for treating human waste.

Scott has accompanied his father on a few rainforest trips over the years, but those were nearly always family vacations, not bioprospecting trips. "That's my dad's type of science," he says. Sitting on a stool in a Yale laboratory sporting overalls and a wide grin, Gary looks like he would happily sleep in a tent in the wild. His son, wearing shirtsleeves, slacks, and a more serious demeanor, acknowledges, "I want to be in a comfortable bed at night." Yet for this HHMI research course, Scott says "trying to combine his brand of science with mine" made sense.

Cong Ma, now a Yale College senior from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, who participated in the HHMI research course, says that the two Strobels' different natures make them complementary, and highly effective, team leaders. "Gary is really encouraging and outgoing. Scott is a little more reserved. But both are fun-loving and great characters. I wouldn't have picked anyone else to lead us."

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