Richard Anthony Jefferson (born 1956) is an American-born molecular biologist and social entrepreneur who developed the widely used reporter gene system GUS,[3] conducted the world's first biotech crop release, proposed the Hologenome theory of evolution, pioneered Biological Open Source and founded The Lens.

In 1986-87, he sent all the components of the GUS system (DNA and strains) together with a comprehensive users' manual to nearly a thousand labs worldwide, before publication, pioneering a biological open source paradigm and a rapid uptake of the technology.

[13][14] In 1989, driven by a need to see the tools of science more broadly accessible and more effectively used in complex environments, Jefferson joined the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) as senior scientist, the first molecular biologist in this position.

Cambia soon moved to Australia, due to Jefferson's involvement in the Asian rice biotechnology programs of the Rockefeller Foundation,[11] and the proximity to almost half the world's agricultural population.

In January 1997, the hologenome theory was extended, informed by further work on the molecular genetics of enteric microbial glucuronide metabolism, to emphasize the central role of microbially-mediated hormone modulation (MHM) as an essential component of multi-cellularity and vertebrate biology.

This led Jefferson to coin the term ecotherapeutics, or ecological therapeutics, stating that a major route to improved performance or health of animals or plants would be through the adjustment of microbial populations and their genetic capabilities (microbiota, often now called the microbiomes).

The technology, called Transbacter involved using three taxes of benign plant-associated bacteria modified with the gene-transfer components from Agrobacterium, to efficiently transfer genes to diverse crop species.