Sara F. Wright
Discovered and named glomalin in 1996, the arbuscular-mycorrhizal substance that glues soil aggregates and stores substantial soil carbon.
The record
- Standing
- foundational work
- Based
- USDA-ARS (retired) · United States
- Focus area
- Soil Biochemistry
- Status
- Retired.
- Works on
- glomalin, glomalin-related soil protein, soil aggregation, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, soil carbon.
Standing is this studio’s placement of the work, not a ranking of the person, and it is the one line here that is a judgement rather than a cited fact.
The work
Soil scientist at the USDA-ARS Sustainable Agricultural Systems Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, who identified glomalin using the MAb32B11 monoclonal antibody and named it after the fungal order Glomales. Her work reframed how soil structure and carbon storage are understood. Now retired.
One correction belongs on this record. A 2025 paper in New Phytologist (Alptekin et al.) found that the MAb32B11 antigen the glomalin assay detects is a fungal polysaccharide rather than the glycoprotein it was long described as, and proposed the name glomalose. What is not in question is the effect: the substance binds soil aggregates, and the aggregate-stability work stands. The discovery and the naming are hers; the molecular identity has been revised.
Where to read them
- USDA-ARS — the organisation
- Wright & Upadhyaya (1996) Extraction of an abundant and unusual protein from soil
- Wright & Upadhyaya (1998) glomalin and aggregate stability
Sources for this record
Corrections
This record was assembled from the sources above, and nothing in it was inferred to fill a gap. If it is about you and it is wrong, or you would rather not be listed, write and it changes.