Dr. Robert Horsch is vice president for product and technology cooperation at Monsanto Company, with responsibility for public-private partnerships to help small-holder farmers in developing countries gain access to better agricultural products and technologies.  He has been with Monsanto for 20 years, leading the company's plant tissue culture and transformation efforts from 1981 until 1995.  In that capacity, he contributed to the development of the Bollgard, Yieldgard, and Roundup Ready traits in broad use today.  In 1996, he became General Manager of the Agracetus Campus of Monsanto Company's Agricultural Sector in Middleton, Wisconsin, serving in that capacity until the end of 1999.

Dr. Horsch has been involved with public-private collaborations since 1990, when he helped launch virus resistance projects for potato and sweet potato with Mexico and Kenya.  He has served on the editorial boards of several leading journals in the plant sciences and also as an advisor on plant molecular biology to the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.  Dr. Horsch taught the Cold Spring Harbor course on plant molecular biology from 1985 to 1988.  He has published more that 50 articles on plant biology and plant biotechnology, and is a frequent speaker on these subjects.  In 1997, he testified before the United States Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry on "Why Investing in Public Research is Important."  In 1999, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Clinton for contributions to the development of agricultural biotechnology.

He received his Ph.D. in genetics at the University of California, Riverside, in 1979,and then conducted postdoctoral work in plant physiology at the University of Saskatchewan.