Talya Kunik serves as the vice-president research and development at TargetGene Biotechnologies, a startup company, established in 2012, that is developing an innovative technology in the genome editing area. Talya received her Ph.D. in plant genetics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After graduating, Talya spent a year at SUNY, Stony Brook as a BARD post-doc and continued at the Volcani center in Israel. Prior to joining TargetGene Talya acted as the senior scientist and then the COO of FertiSeeds LTD, a company that developed a proprietary technology for reversible male sterility in crop plants for the seed industry. Talya is very experienced in leading research and development units to achieve proof of concept in an arrayed process. Talya’s expertise includes molecular biology, cell biology, plant-microbe interactions, plant genetic engineering and human genetic engineering.