Justin hails from Cape Town and was granted his BSc and MSc degrees in Biotechnology from Stellenbosch University, before embarking on a PhD under the guidance of Asaph Aharoni and Fabrizio Costa in a joint program between Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel) and Fondazione Edmund Mach (Italy) from 2010 to 2015. His PhD research focused on the genetic regulation of fruit surface formation, functionally characterising a number of genes from tomato, apple, and Arabidopsis. He then took up a postdoctoral researcher position at ARC Infruitec-Nietvoorbij (Stellenbosch, South Africa) under the guidance of Ken Tobutt, where his research shifted to some applied aspects of apple breeding and genetics, including the study of anthocyanin formation and bud break. His current position is that of a lecturer at the Department of Genetics at Stellenbosch University, where he is leading the grapevine molecular breeding platform, as well as group leader of the Fruit Functional Genomics lab. He has a particular interest in specialised metabolism, plant-environment interactions, and implementing genetics, genomics, metabolomics, and biotechnology to develop improved cultivars.
For more information please browse the Fruit Functional Genomics website: www.fruitgenomicslab.com