SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cibus, a pioneer of precision gene editing in agriculture, today announced the appointment of former Internal Counsel, Rosa Cheuk Kim, to Vice President, Legal. In her elevated role, Cheuk Kim will oversee all legal activities at Cibus, including intellectual property (IP), contracts and litigation.
“In working with internal and external counsel, Rosa has been a key driver in growing Cibus’ IP portfolio for nearly a decade,” said Greg Gocal, Ph.D., CSO and EVP of Cibus. “Over many years, she has thoughtfully managed our IP strategy, from overseeing our internal discovery disclosure process to protecting those discoveries as patents and trade secrets covering key areas that include what to edit, how to edit, cell culture and automation. We appreciate her commitment to Cibus and her attention to detail. I look forward to seeing the continued, impressive impact she will have in her new position.”
Cheuk Kim has played a critical role in positioning Cibus as a leading company in gene editing for agricultural crops and microorganisms used in fermentation. Prior to her role as Vice President, Legal, Cheuk Kim served as Cibus’ Patent Counsel for nearly 10 years, playing a key role in developing and extending Cibus’ extensive IP portfolio. Before her time at Cibus, Cheuk Kim served as a patent attorney at Foley & Lardner LLP. Prior to entering the legal profession, for nearly eight years Cheuk Kim gained invaluable experience in molecular biology research in Dr. Joseph Ecker’s Lab at the Salk Institute and previously at the University of Pennsylvania. Cheuk Kim received her J.D. from the University of San Diego School of Law. Cheuk Kim earned both a Master of Science in biotechnology and a Bachelor of Arts in biology from the University of Pennsylvania.
“Throughout almost a decade at Cibus, it has been incredibly rewarding to support the company’s mission of innovating agriculture toward a more sustainable future,” said Cheuk Kim. “Cibus’ pipeline of plant traits – contained within our IP portfolio – has the potential to make agriculture a more environmentally- and economically-viable practice. I appreciate the opportunity to continue supporting this bold global vision as we continue expanding into the field and the market.”
About Cibus
Cibus is a leading AgTech company that uses precision gene editing technologies to develop novel traits for the global agricultural seed industry. Cibus’ business is based on developing Input and Agronomic Traits that make farming more profitable and sustainable by lowering the cost of farming, improving productivity, and simplifying farmers' work. Cibus’ business model is built around earning license fees or trait royalties by broadly licensing its high value traits to seed companies that incorporate Cibus traits into their elite seed varieties. Cibus is focused on the world’s largest crops: Canola, Rice, Potato, Soybean, Wheat and Corn which, globally, represent billions of cultivated acres. It already has developed and begun commercializing high value traits for Canola and is actively working to develop a growing pipeline of traits in numerous crops. Cibus’ core technology, its Rapid Trait Development System (RTDS™), is a leading technological platform in the Post-GMO revolution that develops traits that are “nature identical” and does not use foreign material such as transgenes or recombinant DNA. RTDS represents a broad family of patented biological and data science technologies. An important strength of RTDS is that it will increase the speed of innovation in farming and, in the process, adding back diversity towards developing numerous valuable traits, single or stacked, available to the farming industry. The company has subsidiaries in Europe and North America and a state-of-the-art research and development center in San Diego, California.
