Charlotte Tumilson works at the commercial edge of plant breeding.
The intellectual property (IP) and commercial manager at Grasslanz Technology Limited (GTL) emigrated to New Zealand six years ago after completing a PhD in molecular biology in the United Kingdom and starting a career as a patent attorney in London.
She met her New Zealand partner, who was travelling through the United Kingdom at the time, “and the rest is history”.
After a couple of visits to NZ, Charlotte joined her partner, Riki Burgess, who is managing Lincoln University’s Ashley Dene research and development station south of Christchurch.
Building her knowledge of farming and plant breeding was a steep learning curve for the self-confessed “city girl” with no previous connection to agriculture.
“My first link to farming was when I met my partner who’s been a dairy farmer since he left school, and then joining GTL. It was just a whole new world to me, but it’s been really great.
“Having that science background means that I can understand what our researchers are talking about and tease out the information that I need in order to manage the protection of our work.”
Apart from managing the IP protection strategy for the company’s endophyte development programmes, Tumilson also handles the registration of plant variety rights for cultivars coming from GTL’s joint ventures in NZ and other countries.
She likes the variety of work her role delivers and is particularly enjoying managing the international plant variety applications using the NZ trial data that supports each cultivar.
The NZ results help GTL to describe the stability, distinctness and uniformity of each cultivar, which ultimately feeds into their protection for GTL and in some cases, its partners.
“I guess it’s a little bit of the scientist in me because I love handling data,” Tumilson said.
She said she feels many people mistakenly believe IP protection is just intended to prevent others accessing a product so the company that developed it can make higher profits.
“But it’s actually aimed at protecting the investment made in the research and development, which can take years to complete, and making a return on that investment so that we can reinvest it in future technologies”
She also looks after most of GTL’s contractual agreements, covering leasing land for trial sites through to research partnerships and licensing.
Looking ahead, Tumilson is excited by the opportunities for the plant breeding industry to create and deliver innovative cultivars that mitigate the impacts of climate change and for research into microbial solutions to help farmers maintain or grow profits from fewer synthetic chemical inputs.
She enjoys being part of a small agile team of 14 staff that can move quickly to capture opportunities when demand shifts occur.
“No two days are the same in my role,” she said.
