Meeting With Professor Chris Franco – Head Of Department Medical Biotechnology, School Of Medicine, Flinders University (Australia)

On October 21, 2015, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Ton Duc Thang University organized a working session with Professor Chris Franco – Head of Department Medical Biotechnology, School of Medicine, Flinders University (Australia). Professor Christopher Franco's research career combines both the industrial and academic spheres. He leads a successful drug discovery and development group in an International biopharmaceutical company and holds patents for 11 compound families. He is Australia's leading actinobacteriologist and continues to discover novel actinobacteria and new bioactives from algae, plant cell culture, mammalian cells and marine organisms. He pioneered the isolation and application of actinobacterial endopytes for sustainable crop production and leads GRDC's multi-insitutional Benficial Microbes Project.

In this meeting, Prof. Chris Franco and lecturers in Applied Sciences Faculty discussed about the research interest in biotechnology, including in plant cell tissue culture, natural compounds, strategies for the isolation of novel actinobacteria, molecular biology techniques, etc. In addition, they also discussed about the prospect in cooperation in research as well as exchange students and staffs in near future.