Peter Beyer

Prof. Peter Beyer has over 30 years experience working on the biochemistry, regulation and metabolic engineering of carotenoid biosynthesis and catabolism. He has published extensively in the field in internationally peer-reviewed journals, including high impact journals. Besides conducting fundamental research Prof. Beyer is the co-inventor of Golden Rice and has been principal investigator of the ProVitaMin Rice consortium funded through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This project has the humanitarian objective of alleviating micronutrient deficiency in developing countries. This work has enabled Prof. Beyer to gain valuable experience in GM product development. Awards have been bestowed on Prof. Beyer including the “Pro Europa” European Award for Culture in Science (Berlin 2002) and he has been voted jointly with his collaborator Prof. Potrykus “the most notable personalities in the areas of agricultural, environmental and industrial biotechnology” by readers of Nature Biotechnology on the occasion of the journal's 10th anniversary.

As part of his Fellowship, Peter Beyer is working on the project Improved Provitamin A accumulation and stabilization through the combination of optimized upstream and downstream pathway components with his collaborator Philippe Hugueney.