Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
botanical research institution in Missouri, US
The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center is an independent, not-for-profit research institute dedicated to plant science located in the Olivette community of St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. It was founded in 1998 by William Henry Danforth, chancellor emeritus of Washington University in St. Louis and named after his father, and established through a $60 million gift from the Danforth Foundation, a $50 million gift from the Monsanto Fund, the donation of 40 acres of land from Monsanto, and $25 million in tax credits from the State of Missouri.
The Center has a $30 million annual operating budget, a $300 million endowment, and 242 employees, including 30 principal investigators. It is home to the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels and the International Institute for Crop Improvement.
The Danforth Center Core Facilities include bioinformatics, integrated microscopy, phenotyping, plant growth, proteomics and mass spectrometry, and tissue culture and transformation. Services are offered to both internal and external clients, and training/access is available to scientists interested in developing knowledge and skills.
History
Founded in 1998 through the efforts of William Henry Danforth, chancellor emeritus of Washington University in St. Louis, the Center was established with a $60 million gift from the Danforth Foundation, a $50 million gift from the Monsanto Fund, the donation of 40 acres of land from Monsanto, and $25 million in tax credits from the State of Missouri.
The public source identifies “Donald Danforth Plant Science Center” as botanical research institution in Missouri, US. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Donald, Danforth and Plant.
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Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5294218. Authority coordinates are 38.674, -90.397. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “Donald Danforth Plant Science Center” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.