Meet Prof. Dr. Arokiaraj Pappusamy

Prof. Dr. Arokiaraj Pappusamy

Deputy Vice Chancellor & Dean - School of Biotechnology

Dr Arokiaraj Pappusamy is currently the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of MIU and the Dean of the School of Biotechnology.

He has served in the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia for 35 years. As a senior research officer in the Biotechnology unit, he was instrumental in generating the first transgenic rubber plant in the world in 1994. He was granted the Chevening Scholarship from the British Council for his BSc and PhD studies at King’s College, London.

He also secured the Royal Society Malaysian Fellowship Award from the British Council for his post-doctoral fellowship on Molecular Genetic Improvement of stem girth increase of Hevea brasiliensis, at University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom

After his retirement from the Malaysian Rubber Board, he lectured at the International Islamic University Malaysia at the Faculty of Science for over 5 years.

He has compiled over 40 publications and has collaborated on several research projects on Hevea with Unilever Research Ltd. United Kingdom; University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom; Life and Environmental Science Laboratory, Korea; KumHo Petrochemical Co. Ltd., Korea; and with CIRAD, Mountpellier, France.

He has a patent on synthesising recombinant proteins in the latex of rubber trees and another filed on the isolation and functional analysis of a latex-specific promoter (hevein). His areas of interest are in plant tissue culture and plant genetic transformation.