Starch: Basic Science to Biotechnology

Mirta N. Sivak was born in Buenos Aires. She trained as a plant biologist and later as a starch biochemist with Carlos Cardini and Juana Tandecarz. After obtaining her Doctorate and spending a decade in England working on photosynthetic carbon assimilation, she continues her work on starch and glycogen synthesis at Michigan State University, where she is a Professor of Biochemistry. She has published extensively in these fields and has lectured on the subjects in America, Europe and Asia.

Jack Preiss was born in Brooklyn. He earned his B.Sc. in Chemistry at City College of New York and completed his Ph.D. with P. Handler at Duke University. His post doctoral work was done with Paul Berg at Washington University at St. Louis and at Stanford and with G. Ashwell at NIH. In 1962 he became Assistant Professor at the University of California at Davis and went through the ranks from Professor to Chairman. In 1985 he came to Michigan State University as a Professor and Chairman of the Biochemistry Department. He has received many honors, among them the Alsberg-Schoch Memorial Lectureship Award of the American Association of Cereal Chemists and the Award of Merit of the Japanese Society of Starch Science.