Edgar Cahoon: ‘There is still so much basic knowledge to learn’
The biochemist and plant scientist talks about growing up on a dairy farm in Eastern Virginia, gardening, biking and Cornhusker football
I grew up in Eastern Virginia in the US on a dairy farm. My father had passed away, and my mother got remarried when I was about five years old to a dairy farmer. Later, we went to growing crops – soybean and corn – and I really developed an interest in plants. I was fascinated by all the chemical diversity that you can see in them.
I wanted to be a scientist. I was just curious about how things work, and I guess science is what you naturally gravitate to when you are that way.
At university, I started out in horticulture, but realised that didn’t tell me anything about what I wanted to know, which was how plants work. So, I switched to biochemistry and have been doing plant biochemistry ever since.