Synopsis - Chlorophyll Biosynthesis and Technological Applications - page 35

Fig. 2.3 Spring 1958, Tino at age 22 on a trip to Tripoli Lebanon with fellow AUB Students.
From Left to right : Tino, Bahram Bahmanyar an Iranian Student and Fayez Kasawinah who later
became President of the University of Yarmouk in Jordan
2.3 From AUB to the University of California
at Davis, California
After graduation from AUB, and in order to further my education, I decided to join
the MS curriculum in the Department of Pomology at the University of California at
Davis (UC. Davis) (Fig. 2.4 ). In August 1959 I choose Professor Julian Crane, a
well-known horticulturist, as a thesis adviser. By June 1960 I graduated with an MS
in Pomology as we made history by developing seedless (parthenocarpic) peaches
and cherries (Crane and Rebeiz 1961 ; Rebeiz and Crane 1961 ).
That summer I was offered a teaching assistantship (TA) in the Department of
Botany to help Professor Elliot Weir with the Laboratory of Botany I, an introduc-
tory botanical course. At the same time, I Joined the Ph.D. curriculum in that
department. A year later the TA assistantship was converted into a research
assistantship (RA).
At that time a young postdoctoral trainee by the name of Joe Key, joined
the Department of Botany at UC Davis (UCD), and I was allowed to start my
Ph.D. research under his supervision. Joe was studying the effect of auxin on the
incorporation of 14 C-Pyrimidines into the nucleic acids of cucumber hypocotyls.
What impressed me most at that time was the rapidity with which the discarded
excised cucumber cotyledons turned green, usually within a few hours after
excision. Soon thereafter Joe left the UC department of Botany and accepted an