Hildebrandt Library

Mission

The Hildebrandt Library, housed in Buckhout Laboratory, consists of a non-circulating collection of books, journals, and other selected materials related to Plant Pathology and serves the faculty, staff, and students as a primary resource of plant pathology related research and teaching information.  The Hildebrandt Endowment also makes possible open access to the American Phytopathological Society’s Plant Disease Management Network, an on-line resource available to the Penn State community through the Penn State University Libraries.  The Hildebrandt Library supports a digital photo archive of Plant Pathology information, including a historical archive and a continuously updated archive of plant disease symptoms and related information.  The purpose of the Library is to enhance library holdings in current plant pathology scientific literature, to increase student access to digital research opportunities, and to support graduate education and research.

History

Dr. Albert C. Hildebrandt was a Professor of Plant Pathology and an internationally recognized leader in developing the science of plant tissue culture.  He developed techniques for isolating and growing cells from healthy plant tissues in culture, and used these techniques to develop single celled cultures and eventually differentiation of whole plants from single cells.  He was active in studies of cell metabolism and tissue differentiation, and an early advocate of using cell fusion as a means of transferring genetic traits.  His work became the basis for development of techniques for plant transformation used extensively today to develop genetically engineered plants.  Dr. Hildebrandt trained 21 graduate students during his career, many of whom became leaders in the area of plant tissue culture.  

A native of State College, Pennsylvania, Dr. Hildebrandt graduated from Penn State, located in his home town, with a B.S. degree in Botany in 1939, and during this time served as the captain of the Penn State tennis team.  He then earned an M. S. degree in Plant Pathology at Penn State with his thesis on ‘Investigations of Twig Canker of Peach’ in 1941.  At the University of Wisconsin, he received his Ph.D. in Plant Pathology in 1945 with extensive studies on in vitro growth of tumor cells from plants infected with Agrobacterium tumefaciens.  Joining the Wisconsin faculty in 1949, he retired in 1978 and died in 2001.  It was his wish to contribute to the educational mission of the discipline of Plant Pathology at his undergraduate alma mater through the endowment of the Penn State University Plant Pathology Library.  We honor his wishes today through the continued maintenance of this educational resource.