Dream Jobs: Laszlo Kovacs

Having studied agriculture in Cold War-era communist Hungary before coming to America in the late 1980s, Laszlo Kovacs has built a career that embodies the American dream.

The biology professor works as a researcher and teacher at Missouri State University, and should Kovacs choose to relax after a long day with a bottle of cabernet sauvignon, he can kick his feet up knowing his work can help many others enjoy the same for years to come. Kovacs’ major area of research is the biogenetics of grapes.

In many ways, Kovacs’ work is a continuation of research conducted in the Ozarks during the 1870s by world-renowned enologists Hermann Jaeger and George Husmann. The pair are credited with saving the European wine industry by exporting the rootstock of Missouri grapevines immune to a pest named phylloxera that was wiping out wine crops at the time.

“In France, not everyone knows where Missouri is, but everyone knows the names of Hermann Jaeger and George Husmann,” Kovacs said.

Today, the stress exerted on crops by climate change is the dominant problem, and Kovacs is using DNA sequencing and gene expression analysis of the Missouri rock grape species to allow winemakers in the United States and Europe to breed plants that grow in extreme weather conditions.

With the help of liquid nitrogen used to freeze and easily grind leaves into a paste to extract DNA, Kovacs and colleagues at MSU, St. Louis University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have become the first to study the genetic structure of rock grape populations in the Ozarks. Kovacs has sent many plants to the USDA Grapevine Germplasm Repository in California, and from there, grape geneticists and breeders have access to agronomically useful grapevine genes. Kovacs’ research is important because it identifies threats to rock grapes and because the wild grape might hold the key to a new type of gene mapping technique called association mapping – a source of pride for Kovacs.

Studying the genetic structure of the rock grape is a critical first step in protecting a wine industry susceptible to the winds of change.

In February, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences released a study that projects areas suitable for viticulture – the cultivation of grapevines – will decrease as much as 70 percent in major wine producing regions across the world because of climate change.

A letter of response penned, in part, by the director of the Grape and Wine Research Institute at the University of Bordeaux Serge Delrot and published in the National Academy’s PNAS publication on Aug. 13, states the study has too soon cast aside the resourcefulness of traditional winemaking regions. “High-quality viticulture is sustained in these regions despite increased temperatures and dry farming because of both the evolution of consumer’s preferences and implementation of adaptive strategies by growers,” Delrot said in the letter.

Kovacs said his work represents the resourcefulness of grape-growing regions, including Missouri, where rock grapes grow wild near riverbeds and are accustomed to conditions such as the drought of last summer and the floods of this year. Through DNA sequencing, researchers can help wine producers gain information needed to breed crop plants that can survive harsh conditions – such as Ozarks weather swings.

Monsanto’s world
Kovacs’ work altering plant genes is the stuff that has brought criticism to Missouri-based agricultural giant Monsanto through documentaries such as “Food Inc.” He defends the idea of genetically modifying foods but emphasizes the power for good in transgenic crops rather than corporate profits.

“For example, cassava is a crop that grows in Africa under very harsh conditions. It provides some carbohydrates, some basic food, but not nutritious food. Now, there are research labs that have introduced genes into cassava that actually add vitamins and nutrients to the crop, so that people who consume the food get better nutrition,” Kovacs said. “There is an ignorance among many consumers who think it’s not God’s way to change plants, but there is nothing wrong with it. We always add genes to plants when we breed plants. When you cross two plants, you exchange the genome between the plants, and so thousands of genes are exchanged.”

At MSU, his research is focused on utilizing the power of wild plants.

“It is not just true for grapes, but with every cultivated crop, the wild relatives of these plants are heartier. They resist pests much better and environmental stress (such as) cold, drought, too much water,” Kovacs said. “There’s a lot of interest in stress-tolerant plants now.”  

Coming to America
The Hungarian participated in a post-college exchange program in 1986 that brought him to Massachusetts to study American agriculture.

“I wanted to learn English, and I wanted to study cutting-edge American agriculture, but I was doing neither,” Kovacs said of the program that only resulted in him and other Hungarians teaching an American businessman how to grow grapes for a winery. After contacting a professor in Hungary and expressing his disappointment, Kovacs was linked with a professor at the University of Missouri, who arranged for Kovacs to study in the Show-Me State. “In Hungary, we had just heard about molecular biology and genetic engineering, whereas in the U.S., kids who were younger than I were already doing it.”

He earned a doctorate in plant microbiology from the University of Missouri before taking a position at MSU’s Mountain Grove campus in 1997.  

Today, aside from his research, he teaches a couple of genetics classes – an advanced class and an undergraduate class with more than 100 students – both of which have labs. While his personality is better suited for work in the lab, he said teaching has its perks.

“It is a lot of work to balance teaching and research, but at the same time it is fulfilling,” Kovacs said.

“I’m happy that I’m forced to work with people.”