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Born: Aug. 19, 1954 at Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Citizenship: Canadian

Education: PhD 1982, Biology, McMaster University.

Research experience:

1983-86: Medical Research Council of Canada Biotechnology Postdoctoral Fellow, Dept. of Medical Genetics, University of Toronto.

1987-90: Research associate, Dept. of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Toronto. Funding from National Cancer Institute of Canada, Leukemia Research Fund.

1991-98: Part-time research associate, Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute and Department of Pathology. Funding from Medical Research Council of Canada.

Teaching Experience:

1977-82: Teaching assistant in Department of Biology, McMaster University. Subjects taught included genetics, basic biology, physiology and biology for non-science students.

1986-88: Lecturer in Core Course for first-year graduate students in the Department of Medical Genetics, University of Toronto.

Current: Associate lecturer at the Stupid School, an initiative designed to compensate for lack of educational resources for homeless people and immigrants in Toronto.

Consulting & Writing Experience:

Project manager, Writer and Chief Editor for Royal Society study: Molecular Biology and Canada's Future.

Writer/Editor of Basic Impacts, a newsletter covering basic research in Canada.

Consultant on several biomedical research communications and lobbying projects.

Other Science-related Experience:

Proprietor of ABRACAX, a small molecular biology consulting business.

Founding member and research associate of the Worldwide Association for the Preservation and Reconstitution of Ecological Diversity (WAPRED) based in Galibedu Village, Kodagu District, Karnataka, India (funding support from National Geographic Society, CAMBIA and local NGO's)

Scientific Publications:

01. Pluthero, F.G. and Threlkeld, S.F.H. Aspects of maze behaviour in Drosophila melanogaster. Behav. Neur. Biol. 26:254-7, 1979.

02. Pluthero, F.G. Genetic differences in response to insecticide in several strains of D. melanogaster. Genetics 91:s97, 1979.

03. Pluthero, F.G. and Threlkeld, S.F.H. Vacuum injection measurements of susceptibility to insecticides. J. Econ. Entomol. 73:424-6, 1980.

04. Pluthero, F.G. and Threlkeld, S.F.H. Genetic differences in malathion avoidance and resistance in D. melanogaster. J. Econ. Entomol. 74:736-40, 1981.

05. Pluthero, F.G., Singh, R.S., and Threlkeld, S.F.H. The behavioural and physiological components of malathion resistance in D. melanogaster. Can. J. Genet. Cytol. 24:807-15, 1982.

06. Pluthero, F.G. Genetics of the behavioural and physiological responses of Drosophila melanogaster to the insecticide malathion. PhD. thesis, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. 1982.

07. Pluthero, F.G. and Threlkeld, S.F.H. Mutations in Drosophila melanogaster affecting physiological and behavioural response to malathion. Can. Ent. 116:411-16, 1984.

08. Pluthero, F.G. Insect behavioural reponse to toxins: practical and evolutionaryconsiderations (review). Can. Ent. 116:57-68, 1984.

09. Maicas, E., Pluthero, F.G. and Friesen, J.D. Post-transcriptional control of the synthesis of ribosomal protein L3 in S. cerevisiae. Molecular Biology of Yeast, Cold Spring Harbour Symposium: 46, 1985.

10. Pluthero, F.G. and Friesen, J.D. Post-transcriptional inhibition of the synthesis of ribosomal protein L3 in yeast. Yeast 2:s304, 1986.

11. Maicas, E., Pluthero, F.G. and Friesen, J.D. The accumulation of three ribosomal proteins under conditions of excess mRNA is determined primarily by fast protein decay. Mol. Cell. Biol. 8:169-75, 1988.

12. Pluthero, F.G., Del Rizzo, D., Eskinazi, D., and Axelrad, A.A. A negative regulator of erythropoiesis. UCLA Symposium on Molecular and Cellular Biology. J. Cell. Biochem. 12A:229, 1988.

13. Pluthero, F.G. and Axelrad, A.A. Purification of an endogenous inhibitor of murine erythropoietic stem cell cycling. J. Cell Biol. 107:269a, 1989.

14. Pluthero, F.G., Shreeve, M., Eskinazi, D., and Axelrad, A.A. An antagonist to IL-3 produced by mouse cells. Blood 74:74a, 1989.

15. Axelrad, A.A., Shreeve, M., Eskinazi, D., and Pluthero, F.G. A protein that negatively regulates erythroid stem cell proliferation: Antagonism to IL-3 stimulation. Prog. Clin. Biol. Res. 352:79-86, 1990.

16. Pluthero, F.G., Shreeve, M., Eskinazi, D., van der Gaag, H., Huang, K-S., Hulmes, J.D., Blum, M. and Axelrad, A.A. Purification of an inhibitor of erythroid progenitor cycling and antagonist to Interleukin-3 from mouse marrow cell supernatants and its identification as cytosolic superoxide dismutase. J. Cell Biol. 111:1217-23, 1990.

17. Pluthero, F.G. and Axelrad, A.A. Superoxide dismutase as an inhibitor of erythroid progenitor cell cycling. Ann. NY Acad. Sci. 628:222-232, 1991.

18. Pluthero, F.G., Shreeve, M., Eskinazi, D., van der Gaag, H., and Axelrad, A.A. The specific effects of superoxide dismutase on erythroid cell DNA synthesis and proliferation. Growth Factors 4:297-304, 1991.

19. Pluthero, F.G., van der Gaag, H. and Eskinazi, D. Superoxide dismutase halts cycling of murine erythroid progenitor cells prior to S-phase in vitro and possibly in vivo. Int'l. J. Hematology 54:357-362, 1991.

20. Pluthero, F.G. Rapid purification of Taq DNA polymerase. Nucleic Acids Research Vol. 21 No. 20:4850-4851. 1993.

21. Phillips, M.J., Pluthero, F.G., Ackerley, C.A., Squire, J. Syncytial giant cell hepatitis: criteria for diagnosis and update on the disease. Proc. Ninth Triennial International Symposium on Viral Hepatitis and Liver Disease:396-398, 1996.

22. Azuma, T., Pluthero, F.G. et al. Abnormal hepatic villin gene expression associated with progressive cholestatic liver disease (in preparation).

Other science-related publications:

Molecular Biology and Canada's Future - Issues Paper, December 1992, Published by the Royal Society of Canada

Basic Molecular Biology Research in Canada: Performance Relative to World Standards, February 1994, Published by the Royal Society of Canada

Basic Impacts Vol 1, No. 1-3, 1993; Vol. 2, No. 1-3. 1994

Molecular Biology and Canada's Future: Building on Strength in Canadian Molecular Biology Research: Final Report and Recommendations, December 1994, Published by the Royal Society of Canada

Description of Formal Research Experience:

My PhD training covered a wide range of biological topics including biochemistry, genetics, insect physiology, toxicology, neurochemistry, ecology, and behavioural, developmental and evolutionary biology, with support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and private sources. My thesis project involved a study of some practical and theoretical problems associated with the physiological and behavioural responses of insects to natural and man-made toxins using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism, since it is amenable to behavioural and genetic analysis. I also worked with aphids for awhile.

Subsequent to my PhD I obtained training in molecular biology in the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of Toronto, with support from a Medical Researh Council of Canada Biotechnology Fellowship. I was involved in a study of the regulation of ribosomal protein synthesis in yeast which required the acquisition and application of most standard molecular biological techniques (nucleic acid purification and detection, cloning, expression systems, etc.), as well as a some advanced methods involved in the study of transient changes in mRNA and protein synthesis (protein labelling, 2-D electrophoresis, polyribosome isolation and mRNA tracking, etc.). Being in such a large and active laboratory provided opportunities to be exposed to many other techniques not directly applicable to my own project as well. The primary practical result of this work was the demonstration that yeast do not compensate for the overproduction of mRNA coding for ribosomal proteins by limiting protein synthesis (as occurs in bacteria like E. Coli), the cells simply overproduce the proteins which are then rapidly degraded.

I then moved on to the Department of Anatomy at the University of Toronto to become a research associate providing the molecular biology expertise for a project studying the dynamics of gene expression and cell cycling in leukemic and normal hematopoietic cells, with support MRC, NCI and the Leukemia Research Fund). In addition to my principal project I was also involved in studies of erythroid cell development, malignancy, the mode of action of oncogenic retroviruses and the expression of cellular proto-oncogenes and viral sequences in normal and transformed erythroid cells. Some promising work was also done towards developing of a defined in vitro model of murine erythropoiesis using recombinant growth factors.

I then began to divide my time between consulting, research and assorted freelance endeavours, with my major scientific connections being with researchers at the Institute of Medical Research and the Department of Pathology at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, working on various forms of severe pediatric hepatitis. We came up with some interesting results, but publication has been delayed due to confidentiality considerations (patents, etc. - not that I stand to make a sou from it all). I have also been collaborating with the researchers at WAPRED in India on organic pest control techniques on a voluntary basis (they give me a hut to stay in).