Robert Thomas Fraley (January 25, 1953, Danville, Illinois[1]) was executive vice president and chief technology officer at Monsanto, where he helped to develop the first genetically modified seeds.
He advocates for the use of GMO products to address global food insecurity and reduce the environmental footprint of agriculture.
[1] Fraley attended the University of Illinois for both his bachelors and PhD, the latter focused on microbiology and biochemistry, working with Professor Samuel Kaplan in the Department of Microbiology, and completed in 1979.
[5] By 1983 he was working at Monsanto, where he was able to use Agrobacterium tumefaciens to transfer genes conferring a selectable marker into the cells of petunia plants.
[6] Together with Stephen Rogers and Robert Horsch, he was able to produce petunia plants that were resistant to kanamycin.