Rofina Yasmin Binti Othman PhD

Rofina Othman is the Professor in the Department of Institute of Biological Sciences at University of Malaya. Rofina joined UM as a Lecturer in the Department of Genetics and Cellular Biology and was appointed a full Professor in 2005. Rofina runs an active research group and has published extensively, focusing on utilising modern biotechnology strategies to tackle fundamental problems in agriculture as well on issues related to BioPolicies, Bioethics and Biosafety. Rofina has filed more than 10 patents and graduated more than 12 Ph.D. and 25 M.Sc. students. Rofina is an associate Fellow of the IMBN and the Academy of Sciences Malaysia and is a founding trustee of the National Institutes of Biotechnology Malaysia. Rofina is also a founding Member of the Asian Network for Biosafety Education and currently sits on the National Biosafety Board. Yasmin was the first head of the Centre for Research in Biotechnology for Agriculture and chair of the University’s Biotechnology and Bioproduct Cluster (UMBIO). Rofina is also Chief Editor of the Asia-Pacific Journal for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology.

In 2009 Rofina left UM for a 3 year secondment to the Ministry of Science Technology and Innovation Malaysia as Undersecretary of the National Biotechnology Division. During her tenure Malaysia launched the Bioeconomy Initiative Malaysia designed to spur growth of the biotechnology industry. Whilst there, she spearheaded the committee which led to the formation of the National Bioethics Council.

Rofina has sat on the Board of Directors of MARDI, the Board of Governors of ICGEB, Trieste and was the National Point of Contact (NPC) for UNESCO’s Microbial Biotechnology Network and SEA-EU-NET (Biotech). Rofina is currently Director of the University of Malaya Centre for Innovation & Commercilisation and Chairman of UM's compliance committee. Rofina completed her B.Sc. in Microbiology at University of Surrey (1984) and M.Sc. in Virology at University of Malaya (1990) then received a Ph.D. in Plant Virology at University of East Anglia (1994).