The University of Saskatchewan’s Global Institute for Food Security has hired its first research leader.
Tim Sharbel was leading a research group in Germany when the university approached him two years about becoming the institutes’ Research Chair in Seed Biology.
“It’s a huge opportunity,” he said.
“Basically it enables me to expand and do more things in my research field, and of course that’s an extremely exciting proposition.”
Sharbel, originally from Montreal, received his undergraduate and graduate degrees at McGill University before moving to Germany to obtain his PhD with the Max Planck Society. From there he worked as a research scientist before spending the last 10 years building his research group at the Leibniz Institute.
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He is a world leader in research for asexual seed formation, or apomixes, and his group’s research focuses on enabling plants to breed asexually instead of requiring cross-pollination.
“The idea would be that if you could turn sex off, then the farmer would buy the seed one time and then proliferate those plants forever and ever without ever having to buy seeds anymore,” Sharbel said.
This would allow companies to focus on developing more crop varieties that are better suited to certain growing conditions.
“Because of this, we could greatly utilize a lot more biodiversity in the world,” he said.
Sharbel and his research group have formed an international company, and he plans to hire more people in Saskatoon.
“Being in Saskatoon means as we develop this technology, we’ll be able to spin it off to local farmers and companies that are all in the Saskatoon area as well,” he said.
Sharbel said he wants to get to know the university’s undergraduate students and use his connections in Europe to facilitate exchanges for them with those in Europe and Africa.
“What we’re aiming for is scientific success, academic success and career success,” he said.
“You want to be working on the careers of people and then finally really helping both on the local and global scales in the agricultural level.”
Sharbel will also work as a plant sciences professor in the university’s agriculture college.
ashley.robinson@producer.com
