This month OBIC is featuring John Finer, a professor in the Department of Horticulture and Crop Science at OARDC/The Ohio State University. Finer has done extensive work with plant genetics and is recognized as a global expert in plant genetics engineering.

Recognized as a global expert in plant genetic engineering, Finer recently received the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center’s (OARDC) 2009 Director's Innovator of the Year Award. The award — a plaque, $1,000 to the winner, and $2,500 to the operating account of the winner’s research program — honors innovation and entrepreneurship by OARDC scientists, either individually or in teams.  He also received the 2005 Ohio State University Gamma Sigma Delta Research Award and has been a U.S. Department of Agriculture competitive-grants program panel member. Finer also serves as an associate editor for the journals, Plant Science and Plant, Cell Tissue and Organ Culture.

Finer was one of the original investigators who contributed to the formation of the Ohio BioProducts Innovation Center (OBIC), headquartered at the OSU Columbus campus. He is widely recognized in the field of developmental plant biology and is often called upon as an industry consultant and legal expert witness. He heads the Plant Transformation Laboratory at the OARDC.

Finer and his busy laboratory staff and students focus on a variety of gene transfer and expression studies using soybean, sunflower, corn, wheat, white pine, Chinese yam; and some years ago, the Ohio Buckeye. The subject of his work, he says, depends on emphasis and need, but a constant theme in his work is moving the pure science of molecular biology into field-demonstrable technology, and then into commercial use with the potential for intellectual property (IP – namely, patents and licensed processes). In fact, his lab was the first to report consistent genetic engineering success – in terms of recovery of transgenic plants – in soybean, cotton, and corn.

In the context of end-use applications, much of Finer's work shows up in improved seed products. For example, his work in soybeans is used for the development of DuPont’s Pioneer® seed lines. "We perform a lot of gene expression studies whose impact (in a commercial sense) is about five years out." He says that, "in all areas, we are looking at ways to develop bigger, stronger, faster-growing varieties – to make them better." "With soybean, there are so many potential applications, and we can have quite an impact," he adds.

Finer's research work has been a consistent producer over the years. His record of novel approaches, papers published, and IP is impressive. Finer has invented a robotic image-capturing system that digitally captures data and images in real time and allows researchers to reconstruct and animate plant developmental events that are critical to understanding gene expression. He also patented a Petri dish that leads to reduced condensation on the lid, and he has a patented way to insert genes into plant material using ultrasound. The gene-insertion method alone has generated some $470,000 in licensing fees for the university.

"What is most exciting to me is working with robotics and using this technology to track gene expression in soybean," says Finer. Robotics has been a part of his laboratory capabilities for five years and he and the lab staff continue to develop unique tools for tracking gene expression. "The future for me is trying to unravel the various elements that contribute to gene expression research," says Finer. "With soybeans, there are so many applications that can have an impact and can have real benefit to Ohio farmers."

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John J. Finer is a professor in the Department of Horticulture and Crop Science at OARDC/The Ohio State University. He completed his B.S. in botany at Miami University. His M.S. and Ph.D. in plant physiology were awarded from Texas A&M University. He did his post-doc at CIBA-GEIGY Biotechnology (now Syngenta).

The Ohio BioProduct Innovation Center is a Wright Center funded by Ohio Department of Development. OBIC focuses on enhancing Ohio’s leadership position in bioproduct commercialization. A novel market pull model integrates academia in support of comprehensive supply chain collaborations across agriculture, specialty chemical and polymer industry sectors. For more information, bioproducts.osu.edu.

Links
OARDC
Ohio BioProducts Innovation Center (OBIC)