Alec Foster Email & Phone Number

New Zealand

Rotorua, Bay Of Plenty, New Zealand

My goal is to replace petrochemicals and non-sustainable materials with products from trees and other biomaterials. My portfolio works with and enables New Zealand companies to create, manufacture and utilise bioproducts for a sustainable future. I currently lead four programmes within Scion. Bioplastics, Composite products, Indigenous fibres, and Packaging solutions. My technical expertise is commercial R&D product development, with a specialism in both biotechnology and polymers. This Portfolio encompasses approx 30 internal projects and >100 commercial contracts.

New Zealand

BIOTechNZ's vision is to maximise New Zealands’ bioscience and technology capability to create a strong New Zealand bioeconomy. It connects innovators, investors, regulators, researchers and social entrepreneurs to further biotech in NZ.

The Australasian Pulp and Paper Technical Association exists to advance and promote innovation and manufacturing best practice across the forest products, pulp, paper and packaging value chain, including new biomass-derived products.

Rotorua, Bay Of Plenty, New Zealand

Working with the CEO my role was to design and manage research programs to breed elite genetic material, and provide knowledge, support and tools to continuously improve profitability for Australasian radiata pine forest owners. This role involves diverse research ranging from genomic based clonal breeding (SNP chip), environment and climate change, pest and disease, genetic engineering, endophytes, hybrids and economic modelling.

Redcar

In this senior role, I lead one of the largest research programmes in all of Europe in Synthetic Biology. Directing a large multidisciplinary team (>100 FTEs) and the research outputs from several world leading collaborators, I oversaw the development of nearly a dozen novel sustainable products within timelines and budget. Several of these were demonstrated at pre-commercialisation scale. Strong IP estate created in gas and waste fermentation, novel polymers, and chemical intermediates and named inventor on >40 US patents. Several of these patents have been licensed.

Redcar

Initially working as a protein biochemist, my role soon translated to bioinformatician, establishing this capability within the group.

As a medical scientist in rural Australia I was actively involved with local doctors playing a key role in the diagnosis, monitoring, prognosis and treatment of patients within the local area. As I was fortunate to be in a regional laboratory, I have become experienced in a variety of disciplines including Haematology, Biochemistry, Microbiology and Transfusion medicine. Advancing to regional transfusion supervisor within 6 months, I was responsible for staff training and all blood transfusions within a 100 mile radius including two major hospitals. In this demanding role, numerous emergency after-hours work was performed, gaining valuable practical experience in time management and communication skills.

Phd, Chemical Engineering (Catalysis/Bioinformatics)

The aim of my industrial PhD was to discover new oxidase enzymes with commercially relevant substrate specificities. Initial research.

Mres, Engineering (Bioengineering)

A Research Masters degree, I investigated hepatocyte phenotype in response to co-culture with hepatoma cells with fibroblasts..

Msc, Information Technology (Bioinformatics)

Taught masters degree were a number of computational and mathematical techniques to solve modern biological problems were covered. This.

Bsc (Hons), Biomedical Science

During this undergraduate course I gained a grounding in medicine, pathology and pharmacology. Research during my honours year composed.