Maurice Moloney

Who is Maurice Moloney?

Professor Maurice M. Moloney is a research biologist and biotechnology businessman who was Director and Chief Executive of Rothamsted Research, from April 2010. to 2013. In December 2013 he was appointed Group Executive, Food, Health and Life Science Industries, for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. He founded SemBioSys and served as its President from 1994-1998 and then as Chief Scientific Officer from 1998-2010. Moloney is the NSERC/Dow AgroSciences Industrial Research Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Calgary.

Prof. Moloney holds over 300 patents in plant biotechnology worldwide and led the Cell Biology group at Calgene to develop the world’s first transgenic oilseeds, which resulted in RoundUp Ready Canola and other novel crops.

Moloney, from Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan, obtained a Bachelor of Science in chemistry at Imperial College London and he was awarded a PhD in Plant Physiology at Leicester Polytechnic, in 1979. He was awarded a Wain Fellowship by the former Agricultural Research Council which he used to do postgraduate research at the University of Washington, in Seattle, joining Professor Robert Cleland. The results of his research were published in prestigious journals and provided a foundation for his subsequent career. From 1979 to 1983, Moloney was a Royal Society European Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Lausanne. He was awarded a Doctor of Science in Biological Sciences by the University of Lethbridge.