Experience

CFH, Ltd.

• United States
• Manufacturing
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Genetic Development Lead

  • May 2019 - Present

  Application of plant genetic characterization and breeding technologies toward the CFH ltd. mission: Development of Cannabis strains with specific cannabinoid and terpene profiles targeted at specific health issues. Application of plant genetic characterization and breeding technologies toward the CFH ltd. mission: Development of Cannabis strains with specific cannabinoid and terpene profiles targeted at specific health issues.


CFH ltd
• United States
• Manufacturing
• 1 - 100 Employee
• Genetic Development Consultant

  • Apr 2018 - Jun 2019


Syngenta Biotechology Inc.

• Research Scientist, Molecular Marker Assay Development Team

  • Jan 2002 - Mar 2016

  Member of team whose objective was to develop and QC SNP marker\assays, provide end users with marker data quality reports, and serve as a genetic data mining resource for end-users of plant omics/genetic data. • Developed SNP based markers distributed throughout the maize genome in order to replace the SSR marker platform for fingerprinting and other marker assisted breeding projects.• Developed trait linked\associated SNP markers for the selection of specific QTL intervals or other marker trait associations of interest to Syngenta's Product Development function.• Served as Subject Matter Expert on several project teams for the development, optimization, and utilization of genome data viewers, NGS SNP discovery database, and genotypic data repositories.• Provided DNA sequence data and genetic marker platform information to Plant breeding project teams, which included diverse functional groups such as: bioinformatics, plant breeding, and marketing.• SNP marker platforms using either Taqman allelic discrimination or Illumina Infinium chips/beadpool. Infinium beadpool genotyping utilized up to 40K SNPs per beadpool. Created Infinium beadpools for six different plant species.• SNP marker selection required familiarity using data analysis tools, such as, genetic mapping software, haplotype block analysis tools\scripts, marker genome distribution scripts and other basic bioinformatics analysis.

• Associate Scientist, High Throughput Genotyping Lab

  • May 1998 - Jan 2002

  Helped transition RFLP lab into a high throughput, PCR based, marker lab for genetic fingerprinting of corn plants. First, was transition to SSR markers followed by transition to SNP based markers.• Established standard operating procedures for project setup and processing through the lab.• Optimized and adapted new instrumentation for application into the high throughput PCR based markers system (initially SSR markers then transitioned to SNP based markers).• Designed and optimized programs for the lab’s Hamilton liquid handling robots(Star8 and MPH96).• Upon completion of duties in the Molecular Markers group, the instrumentation which I had helped to integrate into the lab consisted of 4 liquid handling robots, two ABI3700s, and one ABI7900HT.

• Research Associate, Transgenic Plant Molecular Analysis Team

  • Jun 1994 - May 1998

  Provided molecular biology support to a project team, whose focus was to develop transgenic traits in corn.• Constructed expression vectors for transformation into corn.• Analyzed plant material for expression of transgenes via Northern blot, Western Blot, and ELISA.• Expressed trans-genes in heterologous expression systems in order to characterize the gene product.• Identification and characterization of transgenic events with regard to transgene copy number and genomic insertion site.• Developed, optimized and trouble-shot standard protocols for analysis of transgenic plants.• Provided input and resources to other project teams needing molecular biology support.