photo of guillaume

Science

Dr Guillaume Menard

Molecular Biologist/Analytical Biochemist

Plant Sciences for the Bioeconomy

PUBLICATIONS
Location
Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, AL5 2JQ
Tel
+44 1582 938472
Email
guillaume.menard@rothamsted.ac.uk
Professional Platforms
LinkedIn
ORCID
ResearchGate

Biography

Guillaume’s key research is in molecular biology, biochemistry and phenotyping. Plant phenotyping provides essential information, traits, that can be linked with genetic resources to uncover regulation mechanisms. Guillaume is developing innovative solutions to access new traits with an emphasis on using process automation. During his PhD, he developed a high-throughput biochemistry platform using robotic process automation. His work was focused on the study of the central carbon metabolism of the Microtom tomato, looking for enzymatic mutations in key enzymes known to influence fruit quality. Since he joined Rothamsted Research, he developed his expertise in lipid biochemistry, working with Dr Peter Eastmond and in biotechnology and molecular biology with Dr Smita Kurup. Autodidact in R and other programming languages, Guillaume has created a number of automatic data processing workflow to deal with large datasets coming from “omics” or phenotyping experiments and he’s always eager to take on new challenges. Currently, Guillaume mainly works on direct-seeded rice (DSR), an alternative to puddled transplanted rice, in collaboration with JIC and IRRI. He developed and is using a semi-automatic imaging platform to phenotype a large collection of germplasms to study rice seed vigour and emergence in order to develop more suitable varieties for DSR. 

Science Projects

  • Genetic improvement of rice seed vigour for dry direct-seeded conditions
  • Development and validation of new open-source phenotyping platforms for analysis of rice seedling vigour

PhD Projects

  • Increasing seed size and seed number in Brassica crops (Co-Supervisor)

Awards

  • 2012 - PhD in Plant Biochemistry and Enzymology, University of Bordeaux, FRANCE
  • 2008 - MSc in Plant Biotechnology, University of Bordeaux, FRANCE
  • 2006 - BSc in Plant Biology and Physiology, University of Bordeaux, FRANCE