The Advisory Committee of WBF has elected the new President and Vice President
Professor Shashi Sharma, a former Director to the Western Australian Government in Plant Biosecurity, and Professor and Chair in Biosecurity and Food Security at Murdoch University (Australia), and Professor Zhibing Zhang of the University of Birmingham, UK, have been elected President and Vice President, respectively, of the World BioProtection Forum (WBF). The elections took place during a recently held meeting of the WBF Advisory Committee.
Professor Sharma has more than 35 years of international cross-sector experience in the food and agriculture sector, having worked, collaborated, managed, coordinated, directed, participated, networked and/or led initiatives in over 30 countries across five continents.
Professor Zhibing, who has built an international reputation for developing original work on micromanipulation of single micro-/nanoparticles and encapsulation/ bio encapsulation, brings to the table an academic perspective. He has undertaken research projects on product formulation engineering in collaboration with more than 40 national and international companies, leading to a wide range of industrial applications.
“The appointments of Professors Shashi Sharma and Zhibing Zhang reflect a key focus of the WBF in connecting industry and academia,” commented Dr Minshad Ansari, Chairman, WBF. “If we can connect these two sectors effectively, then collaboration will lead to innovation and commercialisation, and we will move the whole BioProtection industry forward.”
“There is a lock of global and vision in the bio protection sector,” declared Professor Sharma. “For the past 25 years, we have been reactive, but a strategic approach must be taken if we are to find global solutions to the problems facing us today. We need new systems, new technologies and new approaches for providing 21st-century solutions to 21st-century problems. The WBF is in a good position to offer that leadership and to help the BioProtection industry finally realise its potential.”
Professor Zhibing Zhang FREng said, “Food safety and environmental protection are two long-term grand challenges we face on this planet, which require global collaborations between industry and academia. The founding of the World Bioprotection Forum is timely, as it can facilitate such collaborations to develop innovative products for bio protection in the post-covid world.”
