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management team
scientific advisory board
board of directors
strategic partners
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Each of the individuals serving on our scientific advisory board is
internationally recognized as a leading expert in plant biology, plant
pathology, genomics, or chemistry.
Dr. Elliot Meyerowitz
Dr. Jonathan Jones
Dr. Brian Staskawicz
Dr. Fred Ausubel
Dr. Ulrich Schirmer
Dr. Andrew Millar
Dr. Joseph R. Ecker
Dr. Andrew H. Paterson
Dr. Charles Wyman
Dr. Elliot Meyerowitz
Elliot M. Meyerowitz, Ph.D. is George W. Beadle Professor of Biology and Chair of the Division of Biology at the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Meyerowitz earned his A.B. from Columbia University, and M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in Biology from Yale University. He joined the Caltech faculty after a postdoctoral period at the Biochemistry Department of the Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Meyerowitz was a Drosophila expert before he became one of the pioneers of Arabidopsis research. Dr. Meyerowitz is well known for his contributions on the genetic and molecular basis of plant hormone reception, and on the molecular mechanisms of pattern formation in flower and shoot apical meristem development. Dr. Meyerowitz is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1991), the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (1995), and the American Philosophical Society (1998), and is a foreign member of the French Académie des Sciences (2002) and the British Royal Society (2004). Among the awards he has received are the Genetics Society of America Medal in 1996, the International Prize for Biology from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in 1997, the Lounsbery Award from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1999, the Wilbur Cross Medal of Yale University in 2001, and the Harrison Prize of the International Society of Developmental Biologists in 2005. He is a member of the editorial board of 8 leading journals in genetics, genomics, and developmental biology, and has served as president of the International Society for Plant Molecular Biology (1995-7), the Genetics Society of America (1999) and the Society for Developmental Biology (2005-6).
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Dr. Jonathan Jones
Jonathan D.G. Jones, Ph.D.
is Senior Scientist at Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich, UK. Dr. Jones received
his B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Cambridge University. After a 2 year postdoctoral
research appointment with Dr. Ausubel on symbiotic nitrogen fixation,
he joined Advanced Genetic Sciences Inc, in Oakland CA, where he made
significant contributions to the transgenic use of maize transposons in
plant molecular genetics. He also co-authored a dominant patent on the
use of engineered chitinases for plant disease resistance. Since 1988,
he has directed his own group in the Sainsbury Laboratory at the John
Innes Centre, Norwich UK. His group is internationally recognized for
current research on plant disease resistance and plant molecular genetics.
Among other contributions in plant disease resistance, he has isolated
leaf mould resistance genes from tomato, and downy mildew resistance genes
from Arabidopsis. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 2003.
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Dr. Brian Staskawicz
Brian John Staskawicz, Ph.D.
is Professor of Plant Biology at the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Staskawicz received his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley,
M.F.S. from Yale University and B.A. from Bates College. Dr. Staskawicz
is recognized as a leading plant molecular geneticist on plant pathology.
His contributions include cloning of plant disease resistant genes. He
was elected a member of National Academy of Sciences in 1999. Dr. Staskawicz
is the recipient of a number of awards including being named a Fulbright
Scholar in 1991, receiving the American Phytopathological Society's Ruth
Allen Award in 1995 and the U.S.D.A. Honors Award in 1995.
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Dr. Fred Ausubel
Frederick M. Ausubel, Ph.D.
is Professor of Genetics at the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Ausubel received
his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Illinois and his Ph.D. in
Molecular Genetics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr.
Ausubel is a leading Molecular Biologist in the fields of molecular genetics
of nitrogen fixation genes, molecular genetics of Arabidopsis thaliana,
and molecular genetics of host-pathogen interactions in plants and animals.
Dr. Ausubel was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1994, and
has served on seven Editorial Boards including the well-known Bible
for Molecular Biology, Current Protocols in Molecular Biology.
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Dr. Ulrich Schirmer
Ulrich Schirmer, Ph.D., is a very experienced and highly regarded consultant
in the agricultural chemistry industry, in which he has more than 30
years of experience. From 1990-2002 Dr. Schirmer was Senior Vice President
for BASF where he was responsible for the discovery and development of
crop-protection chemicals. Prior to that Dr. Schirmer worked in various
research and marketing positions at BASF. Dr. Schirmer was part of the team
that started the plant biotechnology group within BASF in 1997 and was part
of the integration team for the American Cyanamid acquisition by BASF. Dr.
Schirmer was a board member for Wirtschaftsverbund Pflanzengenomforschung
GABI e.V. Dr. Schirmer played a major role in the development of agricultural
chemicals based on the naturally-occurring strobilurin antifungal compounds.
The resulting agrochemicals represent more than 20% of the value of the
global fungicide market today.
Dr. Schirmer received his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Stuttgart
(1973) and did post doctoral work at the University of Paris-Orsay.
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Dr. Andrew Millar
Andrew Millar, Ph.D., holds a Chair of Systems Biology at the University
of Edinburgh. He combines molecular, physiological, and mathematical
approaches in his research on the circadian clock in
Arabidopsis thaliana.
After undergraduate studies at the University of Cambridge, his thesis
work established long-term luciferase reporter gene methods in vivo and
identified the first plant mutants in clock genes, at the Rockefeller
University, New York and the NSF Center for Biological Timing, Virginia.
A central focus of his group's work is to develop biochemically
realistic mathematical models of the Arabidopsis clock mechanism and
its effects on whole-plant growth, constrained by experimental time
series data and direct parameter measurements. Millar is P.I. for
coordination of GARNet, the UK network for Arabidopsis functional
genomics, which aims to promote both the uptake of systems biology
and translation of Arabidopsis research to crops. As Co-Director and
P.I. of the Centre for Systems Biology at Edinburgh (CSBE), Millar
leads one of 6 BBSRC/EPSRC-funded Centres for Integrative Systems
Biology in the UK. CSBE's research focus is on the modelling of
dynamic biological systems, using Edinburgh's strength in Informatics.
He is also Systems Biology theme director for the Scottish Universities
Life Sciences Alliance (SULSA). His BBSRC Research Development Fellowship
was recently extended, to facilitate the interdisciplinary collaboration
required for systems biology.
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Dr. Joseph R. Ecker
Joseph Ecker. Ph.D. is a Professor in the Plant Biology
Laboratory and the Director of the Genomic Analysis
Laboratory at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in
La Jolla, Ca. He earned his Ph.D. in Microbiology at the
Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine and
carried out postdoctoral studies with Ronald Davis at the
Department of Biochemistry at Stanford University.
Professor Ecker served on the Faculty at the University of
Pennsylvania (1987-2000) before joining The Salk Institute
for Biological Studies (2000). His research on the gaseous
plant hormone ethylene has yielded basic insights into the
mechanisms of plant growth control and its application has
resulted in technologies that delay fruit ripening and
disease processes. His laboratory participated in mapping
and sequencing the genome of Arabidopsis thaliana and he
continues to explore the encyclopedia of DNA elements in
Arabidopsis through the development and application of
technologies for genome-wide and systems biology analysis
of plant gene function. Professor Ecker has been the
recipient of multiple honors, including: the Kumho
Science International Award in Plant Molecular Biology and
Biotechnology (2001), the International Plant Growth
Substances Association Distinguished Research Award (2004),
the American Society for Plant Molecular Biology Martin
Gibbs Medal (2005), and was chosen as the Scientific
American 50: Research Leader of the Year in Agriculture in
2004. He was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences
in 2006, and in 2007 he received the John J. Carty Award
for the Advancement of Science from the US National
Academy of Sciences. Professor Ecker is an editor of PLoS
Genetics and the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Science. He currently serves as President of the
International Society for Plant Molecular Biology.
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Dr. Andrew H. Paterson
Andrew Paterson, Ph.D. is a Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Georgia, jointly appointed in three Departments (Crop and Soil Science, Plant Biology, and Genetics) and the director of the Plant Genome Mapping Laboratory (www.plantgenome.uga.edu). He earned his B.S. (Summa Cum Laude) in Plant Science from the University of Delaware, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Plant Genetics from Cornell University, carrying out postdoctoral studies with Steven Tanksley at Cornell. From 1989-1991 he worked at the E. I. DuPont Company in crop biotechnology, also serving as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Delaware. In 1991, he joined the faculty of Texas A&M University, where he was appointed to the Christine Richardson Endowed Professorship in 1996. He moved to the University of Georgia in 1999. His research into plant genome organization and analysis has yielded basic insights into the evolutionary history of angiosperms, and its application has contributed to genetic analysis of agriculturally-important traits in many leading crops. His laboratory has been active in genetic and evolutionary analysis of sorghum, cotton, sugarcane, Brassica, peanut, Bermuda grass, maize, rice, and other crops, also participating in sequencing the genomes of many of these and other organisms. Professor Paterson has been the recipient of the Crop Science Society of America "Young Crop Scientist of the Year" award (1996), the Cotton, Inc. Cotton Biotechnology award (2002), D. W. Brooks Award for Excellence in Research (2005), National Cotton Council Cotton Genetics Research Award (2008), and a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Plant Sciences (2007-8). Professor Paterson has served on eight editorial boards, and is currently an associate editor of Genetics, Theoretical and Applied Genetics, and Tropical Plant Biology. He chairs the Sorghum Genomics Executive Committee, and is on the steering committee of the International Cotton Genome Initiative.
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Dr. Charles Wyman
Charles Wyman has devoted most of his career to leading advancement of technology for biological conversion of cellulosic biomass to ethanol and other products that will reduce our excessive dependence on petroleum. In the fall of 2005, he joined the University of California at Riverside as the Ford Motor Company Chair in Environmental Engineering. Prior to that, he was the Paul E. and Joan H. Queneau Distinguished Professor in Environmental Engineering Design at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College where he continues as an Adjunct Professor. Dr. Wyman is also the cofounder, Chief Development Officer, and chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for Mascoma Corporation, a startup company focused on biomass conversion to ethanol and other products. Before joining Dartmouth College in the fall of 1998, Dr. Wyman was Director of Technology for BC International and led process development for the first cellulosic ethanol plant planned for Jennings, Louisiana. Between 1978 and 1997, he served as Director of the Biotechnology Center for Fuels and Chemicals at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado; was Director of the NREL Alternative Fuels Division and Manager of the Biotechnology Research Branch; and held several other leadership positions at NREL, mostly focused on R&D for biological conversion of cellulosic biomass to fuels and chemicals. He has also been Manager of Process Development for Badger Engineers, an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of New Hampshire, and a Senior Chemical Engineer with Monsanto Company. Wyman has a BS degree in chemical engineering from the University of Massachusetts, MA and PhD degrees in chemical engineering from Princeton University, and an MBA from the University of Denver. He has authored over 80 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, made more than 50 presentations for publication and more than 150 other presentations, many invited, written over 30 technical reports, chaired numerous technical meetings and sessions, edited 9 symposium proceedings, edited a book on biomass ethanol technology, and been awarded 12 patents. He is also on the editorial board of several technical journals and the board of directors or board of advisors for a number of organizations and institutions. Since 1980, Dr. Wyman's research has almost exclusively focused on biological conversion of abundant and inexpensive cellulosic biomass to commodity products including ethanol for use as a transportation fuel based on his conviction that modern biotechnology provides a powerful tool for cost-competitive, sustainable production of ethanol and other fuels and chemicals with unique and powerful environmental, economic, and strategic benefits. A substantial portion of this research is directed at enhancing knowledge and advancing technologies for the most expensive and critical unit operations: pretreatment and cellulose and hemicellulose hydrolysis.
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