Faces of Penn State: Daniel Cosgrove

Sitting in an office tucked into a corner of his lab, Cosgrove moves smoothly from the well-being of his houseplants to complimenting Crete, his favorite travel location, where, he says, “The people are beautiful, the culture is intense.” He relates his challenges as a dad of a 15-year-old son as well, saying he is learning poker to expand common ground between the two.

Years at Penn State: 21

Professional background: Penn State (1983 to present, distinguished professor / professor / associate professor / assistant professor); University of Washington (1981-1982, postdoctoral research associate)

Academic background: doctoral degree in biological sciences, Stanford University (1980); bachelor’s degree in botany, University of Massachusetts (1974)

Science is a mix of creativity and practicality, but there are times it makes scientists act like “a bunch of amoebas deciding where to go,” says Dan Cosgrove, Holder of the Eberly Family Chair in Biology . “I’ve always been interested in creativity,” he said. “It’s part of what makes science fun.” But Cosgrove is also practical about funding, “blessed” as he’s been with substantial support from the National Science Foundation , the Department of Energy , NASA and the National Institutes of Health over the years. “I’ve seen the dynamics,” he said. “You get one proposal that’s very creative and very high risk, with a 90-percent chance it’s not going to work, and another where you know it’s probably going to work. Proposal-review panels always fund the low-risk one.” Thus the amoeba effect. “Science is a mass movement, people are recognized for certain things, and build on it and branch out.”

Cosgrove is the leading expert in expansins, a protein that allows plant cell walls to grow while maintaining their rigidity. Since technician Dan Durachko, then-graduate student Simon McQueen Mason, and Cosgrove discovered expansins in the early 1990s, many other researchers have jumped on board. “There are people who are interested in investigating expansins for more practical purposes—fruit growth and ripening, fiber strength, forestry,” he said. “To me, it’s a hoot to think some of these things will have applications from engineering plants to grow better to recycling paper.”

Cosgrove seems comfortable with this bemused approach as he leans back at his desk, a wry smile on his face. He sounds well-practiced when he discusses the struggle of balancing creative science with practical reality. Cosgrove encourages his students to spend 20 percent of their time on “creative stuff.” “The high risk associated with creativity is especially tough for young scientists,” he said. “If they’re working on projects that are creative and they have a 90-percent failure rate, they have to have a certain psychological disposition—masochistic maybe—or the ability to withstand failure.” This balance has become more difficult as Cosgrove’s work has moved to the molecular level, causing the length of experiments to extend from days to months, thereby increasing the risk associated with failure. So Cosgrove is realistic. “You hate to see a waste of good students’ talent or the evaporation of their enthusiasm, so that’s what tenured faculty and technicians are for—to take those risks.”

As for the future, Cosgrove will let creativity take its course. First, he hopes to solve some mysteries about how cell walls are put together and how expansins work, but then, he said, it’s time to move on to something new. “I’ll look for something interesting and different,” he said. “I like problems where beforehand I don’t know what the possible outcome will be. I like it when you don’t know the answers yet, and you’re still struggling to define the questions.”

Suzan Erem