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Theodor Otto Diener
Theodor Otto Diener | |
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| Born | 28 February 1921 Zürich, Switzerland |
| Died | 28 March 2023 (aged 102) Beltsville, Maryland, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Dr sc. ETH 1946) |
| Known for | Discovery of viroids |
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| Children | 3 |
| Awards |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Plant pathology |
| Institutions | Washington State University, United States Department of Agriculture |
Theodor Otto Diener (28 February 1921 – 28 March 2023) was a Swiss-American plant pathologist.[1] In 1971, he discovered that the causative agent of the potato spindle tuber disease is not a virus, but a novel agent, which consists solely of a short strand of single-stranded RNA without a protein capsid, eighty times smaller than the smallest viruses. He proposed to name it, and similar agents yet to be discovered, viroids. Viroids displaced viruses as the smallest known infectious agents.
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