Dr Surinder Pal Singh FAA FTSE
Plant oil researcher
Chief Research Scientist, Agriculture and Food, CSIRO (ACT)
Dr Surinder Pal Singh has pioneered the genetic modification of fatty acid composition in oilseed crops to provide improved nutritional value for human health and improved functionality for novel industrial end uses.
He combines a unique blend of gene discovery and being able to transform scientific concepts to agricultural products for commercial applications. He has developed new varieties of oilseed crops (canola and safflower) as well as increasing the oil content in leaves of conventional crops (eg, sorghum) and has provided the science underpinning the commercial development of these new crops.
He joined the CSIRO Division of Plant Industry as a research scientist in 1991 and is one of the world’s leading translational researchers in the field of metabolic engineering of plant lipids. He has played a leadership role in developing and maintaining a world-leading 30+ strong Plant Oil Engineering Group at CSIRO.