Dr. Maurice Maloney

Dr. Maurice Maloney has made it his life’s work to change the way plant proteins are developed for medicinal uses. As an experienced researcher in the field of plant technology, there is possibly no one better suited to study plant-produced proteins that have pharmaceutical uses.

After being educated in England, receiving his BSc from the University of London in 1974 and his PhD from Leicester Polytechnic in 1979, Maloney moved to Canada and began research on oil seeds. In 1987, he joined the University of Calgary’s Department of Biological Sciences.

In 1994, while working with Argentine canola, Maloney, whose career in plant technology spans 20 years, successfully isolated and transferred the gene that produces hirudin, a blood anti-coagulant used to treat people who have suffered from heart attacks and strokes.

The same year, Maloney founded SemBioSys Genetics Inc., a company dedicated to developing plant-based proteins for use in medications. Today, he remains the chief scientific officer for the company.

The process by which SemBioSys Genetics Inc. extracts plant proteins is fairly simple. It involves fusing the proteins to oleosins (a component of oil seeds that provides structure and limits coalesence within the seed during compression) so that when the oil seeds are harvested, the proteins are extracted with the oil and then separated using centrifugation.

SemBioSys Genetics Inc. is the holder of 12 American patents dealing with oil-based technology, the most recent of these being awarded July 29, 2003.

In 2002, Maloney was appointed to Industrial Research Chair in Plant Biotechnology of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council in Canada (NSERC) for a three-year term.

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