Rick Nelson was born in St. Louis, MO, and grew up in the area. He attended Washington University, obtaining his A.B. degree in biology and psychology in 1978. Nelson became interested in plant research at Washington University through course work and internships at Monsanto. He obtained his M.S. degree in agronomy in 1982 and his Ph.D. degree in biology in 1985 from the University of Illinois under the tutelage of James Harper. His post-doctoral training commenced in the laboratory of Roger Beachy at Washington University, where he was instrumental in showing for the first time that plants could be made resistant to virus challenge through genetic engineering. He became an assistant scientist at the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation in 1988. Currently, Nelson is a professor at the Noble Foundation and adjunct professor at Oklahoma State University in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology. He has authored or coauthored more than 80 scientific papers. Nelson’s research is centered toward understanding virus movement and accumulation throughout the host. He was an early pioneer in recognizing that the host was composed of a diverse array of cell types, each potentially with the unique ability to regulate virus cell-to-cell or vascular movement. He utilized an array of viruses, both native and mutant, to study the determinants in the virus genome for spread and accumulation within the host and the cell boundaries within plants that regulate virus accumulation. His laboratory was the first to study the vascular invasion capacity of a virus, determining that Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) can enter any vein class in an inoculated leaf to initiate systemic spread. In addition, his laboratory was one of the early pioneers to survey minor vein invasion by different virus genera within hosts displaying different vascular cell morphologies.
