Richard Anthony Jefferson (born 1956) is an American-born
molecular biologist and
social entrepreneur who developed the widely used
reporter gene system GUS,
conducted the world's first biotech crop release, proposed the
Hologenome theory of evolution, pioneered
Biological Open Source and founded
The Lens. He is founder of the social enterprise
Cambia and a professor of Biological Innovation at the
Queensland University of Technology. In 2003 he was named by
Scientific American as one of the world's 50 most influential technologists, and is renowned for his work on making science-enabled innovation more widely accessible.
He was profiled in 'Open & Shut: The Basement Interviews', and other major media, including in an Economist Feature 'Grassroots Innovator' in 2001.
Education
Born in
Santa Cruz,
California, Jefferson studied at the
University of California, Santa Barbara at the
College of Creative Studies, and obtained his BA (Molecular Genetics) in 1978. He then moved to the
University of Colorado Boulder for his
Ph.D., where he first developed the GUS reporter system, isolating, sequencing and characterizing the first microbial glucuronidase,
and creating transgenic technology for
Caenorhabditis elegans
''Caenorhabditis elegans'' () is a free-living transparent nematode about 1 mm in length that lives in temperate soil environments. It is the type species of its genus. The name is a blend of the Greek ''caeno-'' (recent), ''rhabditis'' (ro ...
Career
As a
postdoctoral researcher he worked at the
Plant Breeding Institute in
Cambridge,
England: there he adapted the GUS assay for the use in plants.
His GUS system was a breakthrough in plant molecular sciences, useful for the development of efficient transformation methods for crop plants, and cell and developmental biology. In 1986-87 he sent all the components of the GUS system (DNA and strains) together with a comprehensive users' manual to nearly a thousand labs worldwide, before publication, pioneering a biological open source paradigm and a rapid uptake of the technology. The GUS system and its novel mode of dissemination was said to be essential for development of transformation of the most important crops, including soybean, maize, cotton and rice. The work has been cited in the primary literature almost 15,000 times., and has been licensed by every major company in crop genetics.
During his postdoc in
Cambridge, he also initiated and managed, with his colleague
Michael W. Bevan
Michael Webster Bevan (born 5 June 1952) is a professor at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK.
Education
Bevan was educated at the University of Auckland where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science in 1973 and a Master of Science in 1974. He wen ...
, the world's first field release of a
transgenic food crop (June 1, 1987), in Trumpington, near Cambridge, UK.
The planting date of the experiment was serendipitously one day before that of Monsanto, in Jerseyville, Illinois, which has been widely but incorrectly viewed as the first such trial.
In 1989, driven by a need to see the tools of science more broadly accessible and more effectively used in complex environments, Jefferson joined the
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) as senior scientist, the first molecular biologist in this position. Since then he traveled, worked and taught in many
developing countries. He left the organization in 1991 to start a non-profit private
social enterprise,
Cambia. Cambia soon moved to
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, due to Jefferson's involvement in the Asian
rice biotechnology programs of the
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...
,
and the proximity to almost half the world's agricultural population.
In September 1994, Jefferson first articulated the Hologenome Theory of Evolution, at a presentation at
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, at a Symposium "A Decade of PCR" This theory was developed from his molecular and genetic work on glucuronide metabolism by vertebrate-associated microbes, including the role of glucuronidases, sulfatases and other enzymes in modulating and effecting
enterohepatic circulation of
steroid hormones. The levels, ratios and timing of steroid hormone de-conjugation (activation) and resorption modulates virtually all aspects of vertebrate ontogeny, physiology and reproduction. The premise for his theory was that natural selection acts on the
holobiont comprising a 'scaffold genome' and myriad microbial constituents in diverse ecosystems, selecting for persistence of the set of genetically encoded capabilities.
In January 1997, the hologenome theory was extended, informed by further work on the molecular genetics of enteric microbial glucuronide metabolism, to emphasize the central role of microbially-mediated hormone modulation (MHM) as an essential component of multi-cellularity and vertebrate biology. This led Jefferson to coin the term ecotherapeutics, or ecological therapeutics, stating that a major route to improved performance or health of animals or plants would be through the adjustment of microbial populations and their genetic capabilities (
microbiota
Microbiota are the range of microorganisms that may be commensal, symbiotic, or pathogenic found in and on all multicellular organisms, including plants. Microbiota include bacteria, archaea, protists, fungi, and viruses, and have been found t ...
, often now called the microbiomes).
The development of theory and its logic were also outlined in detail in his blog in 2007, and summarized in a cover article Jan 9, 2013, by Carrie Arnold in New Scientist
In 1999, Jefferson was appointed as Author-in-Chief to the United Nations
Convention on Biological Diversity for the landmark study, submitted to the UN General Assembly, on the contentious genetic technology, colloquially called 'Terminator Technology'. In this study he coined and defined the term GURT -
Genetic Use Restriction Technology and its variants.
At Cambia, and with the initial funding and partnership with Rockefeller Foundation's agriculture program, Jefferson and the Cambia staff started to develop key new tools - including the vectors, released in 1997, and which now are the most widely used plasmids in plant biotechnology.
The continuous distribution of thousands of these tools without restrictions throughout the world, the dozens of conducted training courses, and the newly invented open technologies advanced what would become the
Biological Open Source initiative, formally launched in 2005. In that year Jefferson and colleagues published a landmark paper in Nature in which they described a new biological open source invention, ''TransBacter''.
''Agrobacterium''-mediated gene transfer was by far the most common tool for agricultural biotechnology, but due to complex and extensive patenting, and aggressive pursuit of dominant patents by Monsanto, the use of the tool was constrained to merely academic pursuits or by use of multinational corporations under license. Using
Patent Lens - the most popular global open full-text patent search engine - founded by Jefferson and his colleague Carol Nottenburg in 1999 as CambiaIP Resource - Cambia published the world's first open patent landscape. Using the evidence and clarity obtained from this patent landscape, Jefferson and his colleagues designed and created an effective alternative technology that would not be constrained by any of the existing patents (of which there were by then almost a thousand). The technology, called ''Transbacter'' involved using three taxes of benign plant-associated bacteria modified with the gene-transfer components from ''Agrobacterium'', to efficiently transfer genes to diverse crop species. "Transbacter" was made available under the first BiOS (Biological Open Source) license, for free to anyone and sent to hundreds of labs worldwide, and was licensed by public sector, small enterprise and multinationals under open principles, with commitments to share improvements with other licensees. The open patent landscape, initially authored by patent experts Nottenburg and Carolina Roa-Rodriguez and later updated by several other Cambia staff, in addition to many other landscapes serve as prototypes of Jefferson's subsequent initiative; open ''Innovation Cartography''
In 2009, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Lemelson Foundation and the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, Jefferson moved with part of Cambia to the
Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia, as Professor of Science, Technology & Law, to direct the global activities on open ''Innovation Cartography''.
Known also for his expertise in
intellectual property, Jefferson remains active in the promotion of
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
biological innovation which has been covered extensively by global media. He served on the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Intellectual Property for four years, and is on the WEF's Global Agenda Council on the Economics of Innovation. In 2013 Cambia launched The Lens to replace the older
Patent Lens and enable broader innovation-focused navigation platforms. Jefferson is considered a global leader in social entrepreneurship and is an Outstanding Social Entrepreneur of the Schwab Foundation, and a plenary speaker at the Skoll World Forum. Jefferson was also a keynote speaker at Consilience 2016, organised by
National Law School of India University
The National Law School of India University (NLSIU or simply NLS) is a public law school and a National Law University located in Bangalore, Karnataka. It was the first National Law University to be established in India as well as one of the f ...
,
Bengaluru
Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...
on Intellectual Property and the Commons.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jefferson, Richard Anthony
1956 births
Living people
American molecular biologists
University of California, Santa Barbara alumni
Queensland University of Technology faculty
Australian molecular biologists