Who am I?

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Who am I?

• John MASON
• CURRENT JOB
• Manager RD
• Florigene Ltd - a biotech company
• (owned by Suntory of Japan)
• PROFESSION
• Scientist - Molecular Biologist

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How did I get here?

• EDUCATION
• Primary
• Glenroy State (Melbourne),
• Salesian Brothers (Lebanon)
• Secondary
• IC BHS (Lebanon)
• Wesley College Matriculation (Melbourne)
• Tertiary
• Associate Diploma Applied Biology - RMIT
• Bachelor of Science Honours - ANU
• PhD Molecular Genetics ANU (CSIRO)
• EMPLOYMENT
• Landscape Gardening 1yr
• ANU - Biochemistry Department - 1 yr
• CSIRO - Plant Industry - 17 yrs
• LIMAGRAIN - Biochem - 2 yrs

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What did I study?

• Botany
• Zoology
• Biochemistry
• Molecular Biology
• Chemistry (too much!)
• Mathematics (statistics)
• Genetics (not enough!)
• Microbiology
• Languages

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What do I do?

• Team Project Management
• Intellectual Property
• Project Design Development
• Presentations Travel
• Writing - reports articles
• Recruitment
• Plant Molecular Biology
• Gene Isolation Characterization
• Genetic Engineering

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What do we do?

• Engineer carnation, rose, gerbera, chrysanthemum,
  petunia flowers especially for novel colours
• Isolate clone genes PCR, Southern, sequence
• Identify genes assay in E. coli, yeast and
  plants
• Analyse pigments use TLC, HPLC
• Characterise genotypes (mostly crude)
• Southern
• PCR
• Northern
• Sequence
• RNAi
• Transform plants using Agrobacterium
• Tissue culture
• Grow flowers
• Sell GM flowers globally

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Who do we employ?

• 12 RD Staff
• All are tertiary qualified
• Scientists BSc Hons - minimum
• 6 scientists with PhDs
• Research support - TAFE
• Administration Sales
• IP science law other
• Sales - some with science

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Whats hard?

• Genetic engineering
• Single gene traits
• Protection of effort
• GM release

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Why are they so?

• Genetic engineering
• it aint so simple, nothing is
• living things are beautifully complex ah,
  evolution!
• Single gene traits
• they exist, but then again .. theres more to
  it than that
• organisms are highly evolved anarchic
  collections of cells
• Protection of effort
• expensive, necessary, limited opportunity, niche
• GM release
• some people dont like it, even if they dont
  know why
• what should we worry about?
• how the human brain works .. is it relevant?

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What motivates me?

• Hands-on
• Learning
• Technical complexity
• Science Technology
• Living organisms
• Novel/cutting edge
• Results
• Efficiency
• Other stuff

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