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Biography |
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Current Position (since 2001)
General Manager of Diversity Arrays Technology Pty Limited, a biotechnology company, delivering a high throughput and low cost plant genotyping service and IT support for plant breeding.
Expertise: Plant breeding, genetics and molecular biology. Research program design and management.
Interests: Application of biology to international agriculture and development, food security and environmental sustainability.
Career Highlights
• Engineer-Doctor degree from Institut National Agronomique (Paris, France, 1986).
• Postdoctoral scientist (1987-1988), laboratory of Professor Zhou Guang Yu, Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry, Chinese Academy of Science, Shanghai, China.
• Staff scientist, INRA Versailles (1988-1990).
• Director, Groupe Limagrain Pacific (1990-1998), the plant molecular biology research laboratory of Groupe Limagrain in Canberra (Australia). Molecular tools for crop improvement, genes for artificial male sterility and virus resistance.
• Founding member of the Cooperative Research Centre for Plant Science (Canberra, 1991-1998).
• Scientific adviser to Gene Shears Pty Limited, a biotechnology company developing ribozyme technology for commercial applications (1991 – 1998). Member of the Board of Gene Shears (1993 – present).
• Director of plant genomics research, Biogemma, Paris (1998-2000). Instrumental in founding Génoplante, the French public-private consortium for plant genomics research.
• Chief Scientific Officer, Biogemma (2000).
• Business Development Manager and Principal Scientist, CAMBIA (2001-2004).
• Member of the Australian government Biotechnology Advisory Council (2005-2008)
• Author of twenty publications, several book chapters. Inventor of several technologies, patented or with patent pending.
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Abstract |
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Modern plant breeding supported by high density genetic information |
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Improved plant varieties have played a major role in increasing agricultural production. Indeed ongoing genetic improvement of crops will be very important for increasing food security, making agricultural production more reliable, less constrained by disease and climatic variability, and more sustainable over the long term.
Some genetically simple traits have been improved in many crops using GM technology. However, a successful variety has to integrate a large number of often complex properties and traits, in order to deliver the performance the farmers need. Therefore traditional plant breeding has remained the key to the successful development and deployment of novel high performance varieties. DNA-based information, knowledge, and techniques can be applied to plant breeding independently from (or in addition to) GM technology, through the use of genetic molecular markers. The field of molecular marker-assisted plant breeding has evolved with progress in the science and the technologies of genomics. Marker-assisted plant breeding is now supported by modern genotyping methods, which have progressed over the past decade in two directions: the density of information produced from a DNA sample has increased, while the cost of the analysis per sample has decreased. Breeding strategies are now evolving to take full advantage of these high density genetic profiles as well as the new data analysis and management tools enabled by progress in Information Technology. Genomic Selection (GS) is one new breeding strategy where genetic profiles can replace phenotypic evaluation in some steps of the breeding process, thereby saving time and resources. Initially developed for animal breeding, building on the large resources available in animal genomics, GS has recently started to be applied to plant breeding.
This talk will first briefly present two platforms used by Diversity Arrays Technology to produce high density genetic profiles in plants: a micro-array based platform and a DNA sequencing based platform.
The talk will then present and discuss recent results demonstrating the usefulness of GS in plant breeding, before exploring requirements and challenges of these new plant breeding strategies.
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