Leading US-based agricultural biotech company BioConsortia has appointed Andrew Jacobs as head of research and development for its operation in Auckland.
Jacobs joins BioConsortia with an extensive employment history in research management. Most recently he served as manager of corporate projects at ITEK Ventures, an independent technology commercialisation company associated with the University of South Australia.
During his tenure with ITEK, Jacobs managed collaboration between the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG) and Dow AgroSciences. He had been a research fellow at ACPFG since 2003 and was concurrently an adjunct lecturer at the University of Adelaide.
“We have recruited another strong and complementary asset to our global team,” said BioConsortia’s senior vice president of research and development, Susan Turner. “Andrew’s experience enables him to lead our research efforts in Auckland and help position our work within the context of the global microbial and seed treatment markets.”
Jacobs completed his PhD at the University of Adelaide and spent six months in Germany at The Max-Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research. His role with BioConsortia will focus on further developing the company’s proprietary Advanced Microbial Selection (AMS) process, which works to improve plant traits and increase crop yields
“What motivated me to join the BioConsortia team was the elegance and uniqueness in the directed selection technology of the AMS process,” Jacobs explained. “The ability to rapidly evolve the microbiome through AMS allows for beneficial impact upon multiple traits across multiple species.”
