Ajay joined the Plant Improvement Team at GIFS in January 2023 with Dr. Andrew Sharpe to work on the Enabling Canola Protein Optimization (ECPO) project. The ECPO project is a collaboration between GIFS and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Saskatoon Research and Development Centre. This project aims to improve the value of canola meal, the currently undervalued protein-rich side product of canola oil production.

Ajay is originally from TamilNadu, India. He obtained his B.Tech in Biotechnology and M.Tech in Biopharmaceutical Technology from India. He moved to Singapore to pursue his Ph.D in Stem Cell and Developmental Biology in Plants at National University of Singapore through the NRF-RICE Scholarship program. His Ph.D research focused on deciphering the molecular mechanisms involved during De Novo Organogenesis and Tissue Repair in Arabidopsis roots.

He then moved to Calgary, where he worked as a Post-Doctoral Associate at the University of Calgary in association with Nutrien. His post-doctoral research work mainly focused on developing robust Cas9- and MAD7-edited canola lines with enhanced shatter tolerance and improved seed degreening traits. In addition, he worked on screening and characterizing canola lines with enhanced shatter, increased protein and oil yield with Nutrien. He was also a successful holder of a MITACS elevate post-doctoral fellowship and worked in-collaboration with Farmer’s Legacy Biotech as an industry partner. His research interest includes protein engineering, bioinformatics and gene editing for crop improvement.