Mark Alfred Tester (born 6 March 1963 in Tasmania) is an Australian botanist and professor of plant science at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, where he is also associate director of the Center for Desert Agriculture.
[3] For his PhD, he worked with Enid MacRobbie to study potassium ion channels.
[4] Tester's research aims to understand the molecular processes that allow plants to survive in suboptimal conditions.
[2] In 2017, he and his colleagues sequenced the entire genome of quinoa, which he originally started studying to determine how it can tolerate high levels of salt.
He subsequently criticised the drama's directors, Alan Rusbridger and Ronan Bennett, stating that they had ignored his criticisms of the piece and produced a documentary "to inflame uninformed anti-GM hysteria".