Senior Scientist
Applied Biotechnology Institute
San Luis Obispo, California
My graduate work at North Carolina State University was aimed at elucidating the mechanism by which tomato golden mosaic virus (TGMV) alters the plant cell cycle and showed that TGMV induces expression of PCNA through the pRb/E2F pathway. During my postdoctoral work I studied the mechanisms by which human papillomavirus (HPV) causes degradation of the tumor suppressor pRb and activates telomerase.
As a senior scientist at Applied Biotechnology Institute I have helped develop the maize system for expression of high value recombinant proteins. These include cellulase, butyrylcholinesterase, Ebola GP, HIV Env and others. I have shown that increased expression can be achieved using multiple copies of the transgene. Of relevance to the work described here, I have prepared and transformed into maize the initial constructs for production of the spike protein from the coronavirus porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) and the spike protein from SARS-CoV-2 for potential edible vaccines