About Fertiseeds

Board of Directors

Benny Bachrach, Chairman, president of "Olesh" Business & Economic Consulting. He is business manager, economist and consultant with many years experience in the Israeli industry, international trade, investment banking and project development worldwide. He has extensive experience with economic modeling including work with WB, IFC and EBRD.

Dr. Dan J. Gelvan, Managing Director-Life Sciences, Aurum Ventures MKI Ltd. Dr. Gelvan is a seasoned life-science executive who before joining Aurum Ventures managed GammaCan International, Inc. (OTCBB: GCAN), a development-stage pharmaceutical company. Prior to that, Dr. Gelvan founded and managed Zetiq Technologies, a drug discovery company specializing in cell-based high-throughput screening for novel anti-cancer drugs. Dr. Gelvan founded Zetiq after leaving a senior position in Clal (Israel) Ltd., one of Israel's largest holding conglomerates. Dr. Gelvan holds a Ph.D. in Business Economics from RUC in Denmark and he is an experienced lecturer of corporate finance and entrepreneurship. Dr. Gelvan is a member of Israel's National Committee for Biotechnology.

Dr. Shamay Izhar, Founder of the company and Director. Dr. Izhar invented FertiSeeds' core hybridization technology called "Exogenic Allelism". Professor of Genetics, Horticulture and Biotechnology, he received his Ph.D. in genetics from Cornell University. He served for thirty years as senior scientist at the Volcani Center heading various departments and as director of the Institute of Field and Garden Crops. He holds several professorships at American and British Universities as well as at academic institutions in Europe. Dr. Izhar founded the Center for Biotechnology and was its first chairman. He served as a member of the National Committee for Biotechnology. Dr. Izhar's major research areas are floral mechanisms and reproduction biology in plants. He invented and developed systems such as the petunia CMS, a unique hybridization technology for tomatoes and a novel floral type in strawberry called "Infra Short Day" (ISD). Respectively, Dr. Izhar holds many world-wide plant and utility patents. He has developed many early yielding strawberry varieties which are grown worldwide and he will head the strawberry breeding program in the company.

Moshe Wiesel, an economist by training, has been involved with FertiSeeds since the early development stages. An innovator in the insurance and pension field, he established and managed the largest insurance agency in Israel.

Prof. Ilan Chet, Ex-President of the Weizmann Institute. Prof. Chet served as the President of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot (2001-2006), VP R& D of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1991-2001), as Dean of Hebrew University's Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot (1986-1989) as Founding Director of the Otto Warburg Minerva Center for Agricultural Biotechnology (1983-1986) and as Head of the Dept. of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Faculty of Agriculture, Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem (1981-83). He was a visiting professor at Harvard, Cornell, and Rutgers Universities in the US and at the Goettingen and Lund Universities in Europe. Chet also served as senior scientist at DuPont and as a member of the scientific advisory committees of both the European Union and NATO. Prof. Chet received the EMET Prize (2004), the Wolf Prize (1998), the Israel Prize (1996), the Japanese Arima Prize for Applied Microbiology (1996), the Max-Planck Award for Distinguished Research (1994) and the Rothschild Prize in Agriculture (1990). He received the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2001), awarded an honorary doctorate from Naples University (2007); the University of Haifa (2006) and from Sweden's Lund University (1991). Chet was also appointment Chairman of the Health & Environment Fund, Israel (2007). Prof. Chet's research deals with the biological control of plant disease, focusing on the use of environment friendly microorganisms to decrease the need for pesticides. Prof. Chet has published more than 360 articles, edited three books, and holds 32 patents. He has trained more than 30 Ph.D. and 55 M.Sc. students. Prof. Chet has been a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities since 1998 and the European Academy of Sciences since 2004.