E-mail: e.huttnerDiversityArrays.com

I have been General Manager of DArT P/L since August 2001. I look after the day to day management of the company, and communicate to our various partners, interactors and stakeholders. I also contribute to the analysis of our customers' data and the mapping of the company's strategic directions. Very rarely, I perform small lab experiments to keep contributing to the technology development and to ensure that I remain in touch with the reality of our technology.

I graduated in 1983 from Institut National Agronomique in Paris, the top French engineering school in the field of biology, after completing one year of molecular biology research on E. coli metabolism with Professor Antoine Danchin at Institut Pasteur in Paris. In 1986, I obtained a Doctorate degree from Institut National Agronomique for research work conducted on the molecular cloning of the cDNA for tobacco nitrate reductase, with Dr Michel Caboche in INRA, Versailles, France. I then conducted postdoctoral research from 1987 to 1988 in the laboratory of Professor Zhou Guang Yu, Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry, Chinese Academy of Science, Shanghai, China, with funding by INRA (French government). Thereafter, between 1988 and 1990, I was staff scientist at INRA Versailles in Dr Marie Angèle Grandbastien's laboratory. I was able to demonstrate that the transcription of plant retrotransposon is induced by stresses.

I had always been interested in the practical application of research to solve agricultural problems. When the opportunity arose in 1990 to join the research team of Groupe Limagrain, a French farmers' cooperative and one of the world's largest seed company, I resigned from INRA. I was given the task to establish Groupe Limagrain Pacific, a plant molecular biology research laboratory in Canberra (Australia). The laboratory was working on molecular tools for crop improvement, and designed and built various genes for artificial male sterility and virus resistance. Some resulting transgenic plants have been subsequently field-trialed in Europe. In that context, I was also scientific adviser to Gene Shears Pty Limited, a biotechnology company developing ribozyme technology for commercial applications from 1991 to 1998, and I am still a member of their board. I was also the founding member of the Cooperative Research Centre for Plant Science in Canberra (1991 to 1998) and a member of its Board and Management Committee.

In 1998, I was appointed director of plant genomics research by Biogemma, Paris. I was instrumental in founding Génoplante, the French public-private consortium for plant genomics research. I was the private sector manager of Génoplante's Arabidopsis and Rice program from 1998-2001. In 2000 I was appointed Chief Scientific Officer of Biogemma, where I coordinated research programs involving more than 60 scientific and technical staff, and oversaw multiple research and technology transfer partnerships.

Following these very full years, I decided to change and moved back to Canberra, Australia with my family to take up the position of Business Development Manager and Principal Scientist at CAMBIA (2001-2004). This led to my employment with DArT P/L, where I was instrumental in formation of the company.

I am the author of several publications and book chapters and inventor of a number of technologies, patented or with patents pending internationally. In 2005 I was appointed for three years to the Australia Biotechnology Advisory Council (ABAC) by the Australian Minister for Industry, Science and Tourism.

Selected publications

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