Fatma Kaplan, Ph.D. is the CEO of Pheronym, Inc. She has a Ph.D. in plant molecular stress biology and postdoc in chemistry and social behavior of nematodes which are the most abundant animals on earth. They parasitize nearly every species such as plants, insect and humans. Dr. Kaplan was the first to isolate sex pheromone of nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, discovered that the same class of pheromones controlled both development and behavior, published in Nature 2008. Then, she found agriculturally important nematodes use the same class of pheromones for nematode behavior at the United States Department of Agriculture and published in PLoS One in 2012. Pheromone technology has practical applications to control parasitic nematodes for food security and drug development. Dr. Kaplan co-founded Pheronym to turn pheromone technology into a product and provide effective pest control to farmers, growers, and homeowners.
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