
Mary-Dell Chilton: The quiet driver of the GMO revolution in crops
Mary-Dell Chilton, a pioneering chemist and biotechnologist, led teams that used Agrobacterium tumefaciens to insert foreign genes into plants, producing the first genetically modified plant in 1982 and kickstarting the GMO era; her trailblazing work, alongside perseverance in the face of gender barriers, earned major honors and reshaped modern agriculture.