Ryan Whitford

Ryan is a geneticist who's translatable research outcomes are in crop reproductive biology and are aimed at 1) reducing the cost of hybrid wheat seed production, 2) generating stress resilient varieties through a deeper understanding of the underlying molecular mechanisms behind plant stress responses (e.g. heat, drought, frost) and, improving recombination using the latest genome editing technologies. He has previously worked on projects ranging from meiosis to extracellular peptide signalling in Arabidopsis and cereals. Ryan completed his PhD at the Co-operative Research Centre for Molecular Plant Breeding at the University of Adelaide, after which he worked as a research lead for Bayer Cropscience GmbH (Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany) before a postdoctoral period within the Flemish Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB/Ghent University, Belgium). He was responsible for leading the hybrid wheat and gene editing programs at both The School of Agriculture Food and Wine (University of Adelaide) and the Australian Centre of Plant Functional Genomics (Adelaide, South Australia) in partnership with DuPont-Pioneer (USA). Ryan recently relocated back to Western Australia and is now based at Murdoch University where he leads a crop reproductive biology research program collaborating with national and international research organisations both in the public and private sectors. He receives support through an Australian Research Council Industry Fellowship and BASF.