CONTACT

Contact

Board Members

The board members are elected every two years. The 2018 to 2020 board is:

President

Inge Broer is emeritus Professor at the University of Rostock. Her research is focussed on the usage of transgenic plants for a sustainable agriculture.  
During her carrier she pioneered the risk assessment on transgenic plants and developed new methods like the inducible male sterility in plants. Recent research is focussed on the production of vaccines and biodegradable polymers in transgenic plants.

Treasurer/Membership secretary 

Julian Ma holds the Hotung Chair of Molecular Immunology at St. George’s, University of London. He is also Director of the Institute for Infection and Immunity. He has worked in the field of Molecular Farming for vaccines and antibodies since 1991 and has a particular interest in developing products for major infectious diseases affecting developing countries.

Secretary

Marc-Andre D´Aoust is Chief Scientific Officer of Aramis Biotechnologies, a company developing new approaches to vaccines and therapeutics using plant-based expression and manufacturing technologies. He studied plant biochemistry and molecular biology at Laval University and worked for 24 years with Medicago.

Vice Secretary

Pooja Saxena has over a decade of research experience in plant molecular farming and development of virus-like particle vaccines. She received her PhD in plant biotechnology from the John Innes Centre, UK and pursued post-doctoral research in structural virology at Indiana University, USA. Subsequently, at the Canadian pharma company - Medicago, Pooja supported discovery and development activities for plant-based vaccines for infectious diseases including COVID-19.

Society Awards Manager

Kirsi-Marja Oksman-Caldentey (PhD Pharm) is a Senior Adviser in the Industrial Biotechnology and Food Solutions research area at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd. and adjunct professor at the University of Helsinki. Her research interest focuses on understanding the complexity of biosynthetic pathways of plant secondary metabolism at systems level.

Website Manager

Heribert Warzecha is Professor for Plant Biotechnology and Metabolic Engineering at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany. His main research interests are to understand how plants build complex metabolites with pharmacological properties and how to engineer novel pathways.

Conference Organizer

Inga Hitzeroth is the deputy director of the Biopharming Research Unit (BRU) in the Molecular and Cell Biology Department at the University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa. Her work focuses on production of pharmaceuticals and vaccines in plants with the view of developing diagnostics and vaccines that are affordable in developing countries.

Conference Organizer

Eugenio Benvenuto is Senior Scientist, Laboratory of Biotechnology Head at ENEA,Biotechnology and Agroindustry Division, Italy. He has thirty years experience in genetics and molecular biology. His fields of interests are agrobacterium-mediated plant gene transfer, 
plant virology, and antibody engineering. 

Communication Officer/
Chief Twit

Hadrien Peyret is a Senior Post-doctoral Scientist at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK. He has conducted research into plant-produced VLP-based technologies as well as novel viral vectors for plant transient expression.

Communication Officer

Penny Hundleby is a Senior Scientist at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK. She is actively engaged in GM and Genome-editing of brassica crops; and has a keen interest in following the EU regulatory debate surrounding such crops.
Further info can be found at https://www.jic.ac.uk/people/penny-hundleby/

Communication Officer

Rima Menassa is currently a senior research scientist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and holds an adjunct professor appointment at the Biology Department of Western University. Her research program is focused on producing veterinary subunit vaccines and antibodies in plants with the goal of oral administration to animals as an inexpensive method to treat and/or prevent animal diseases

Communication Officer

Sancha Salgueiro owns the consultancy company chart Biotechnology, which focuses on commercial evaluation and support to development of innovative early stage research technologies and products. She worked as a scientist in plant gene regulation. Her interests are Molecular Farming, medical use of plant-derived products and efficient bioprocesses. She did her PhD research project at the John Innes Institute (1992) and has an MBA from TiasNimbas University (2003,NL).

Communication Officer

Jennifer Stander is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Biopharming Research Unit at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her work focuses on the production of diagnostic reagents and candidate vaccines in plants. Her ultimate goal is to provide a basis for affordable and effective vaccine and diagnostic reagent production in low-to-middle-income countries.


Administrative Support

Sarah Tolland is a Science Support Administrator at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK. She has worked supporting science for more than 20 years and has extensive experience in organising conferences and online events.
 

 

 

 

 

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