Francois Belzile's Biography

Francois Belzile, Professor, Laval University

Dr. Francois Belzile is presently Full Professor at Laval University, Canada. He did B. Sc. In Agronomy from Laval University and M.Sc. & PhD in Genetics from University of California-Davis, Davis CA, USA. He then persued his Postdoc at John Innes Institute, Norwich UK. While trained as a plant molecular geneticist and initially working on DNA repair and recombination genes in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, Dr Belzile have always been interested in putting basic knowledge to work in applied plant genetics. Over the last decade, he has been increasingly dedicated to using his knowledge of molecular genetics and genomics to develop novel approaches in plant breeding and crop development. Dr Belzile aim to act as a bridge and a facilitator between the genomic sciences and its applications in the development of new and improved crop varieties. He currently co-lead the SoyaGen Project, a large applied genomics project in soybean genomics funded by Genome Canada and numerous industry partners.