PhD Scholar Information

Academic qualifications

Carolina holds a BSc in Microbiology, an MSc in Plant Biology and a Masters of International Law. She is in the final stages of her PhD thesis in Law entitled “Property on Crop Plant Resources and Related Knowledge: A Multilevel Governance Appraisal”. Her principal supervisor is Professor Peter Drahos at the Centre for Governance of Knowledge and Development (CGKD).

Current research

Carolina’s research focuses on the interplay of governance and regulatory regimes that control access and use of crop genetic resources and related knowledge. She examines how international legal regimes regulating biodiversity resources are adopted and adapted at regional (the Andean Community of Nations) and national (Bolivia, Colombia and Peru) levels. By interviewing stakeholders in the region she investigates how the new legal and policy environment has impacted agricultural R&D carried out by scientists and traditional farmers (1). Carolina analyses her findings in light of institutional, regulatory and property theories that are not commonly discussed in the context of crop resources or agricultural research, bringing in this way data and insights from previously unconnected areas.

Her research sheds light particularly on: (i) the interconnectedness and changes of property domains (commons, state sovereignty, public, private intellectual property) unfolding in the interplay of international regimes regulating biodiversity-related resources (2); (ii) the issues arising in the “translation” of these global rules into regional and national contexts; (iii) the interaction between formal rules and social norms in relation to accessing and using biodiversity resources; and (iv) the overall responsiveness of the regulatory regimes at various governance levels to the needs of agricultural R&D and the significance of this phenomenon for developing nations.

Professional experience

As a lab and field scientist Carolina worked for several years on the diversity of crop genetic resources (4-6) and on the molecular basis of apomixis at the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Colombia. In Australia, while researching on soil micro-organisms with potential applications for plant gene transfer at the Centre for Molecular Biology to International Agriculture (CAMBIA) (Canberra), Carolina decided to combine her scientific skills with a career in intellectual property (IP) law. During her appointment as an IP Analyst with the CAMBIA IP Resource (later Biological Innovation for Open Society –BiOS), Carolina wrote several comprehensive papers on the patenting landscapes of key biotechnologies at global level (7, 9-11) and contributed with her IP analysis to the design of alternative bacteria for gene transfer (8). Additionally, she carried out multiple freedom-to-operate and state-of-the-art analyses, and participated in the elaboration of IP tutorials. During her time working on the governance and regulation of agrobiodiversity resources at RegNet, Carolina has taught a postgraduate course on IP and agrobiotechnology in Latin America and has worked as an IP consultant for a study on the Australian potato industry in a global context, and for a private biotechnology company. 

Selected publications

1. Roa-Rodríguez C (2007) The Regulation of Agricultural Resources: How International Contestation of Property Domains Impacts on Agricultural R&D in Andean Countries, Paper presented at the 11th Conference of the International Consortium on Agricultural Biotechnology Research (ICABR): New Agricultural Biotechnologies: Economics, Policies and Science, 26-29 July, Ravello (Italy), 20p. [PDF]
2. Roa-Rodríguez C and van Dooren T (2008) Shifting Common Spaces of Plant Genetic Resources in the International Regulation of Property, The Journal of World Intellectual Property 11(3):176-202. [PDF]
3. Roa-Rodríguez C (2008) The Basmati Rice Controversy Re-visited (online), HarvestChoice (to be released soon)
4. Roa AC, Maya MM, Duque MC, Tohme J, Allem AC, Bonierbale MW (1997) AFLP analysis of relationships among cassava and other Manihot species, Theoretical and Applied Genetics 95: 741‑75 [PDF]
5. Roa AC, Chavarriaga P, Duque MC, Maya MM, Bonierbale M, Iglesias C, Tohme J (2000) Cross-species amplification of cassava (Manihot esculenta) (Euphorbiaceae) microsatellites: allelic polymorphism and degree of relationship, American Journal of Botany 87: 1647-1665 [PDF]
6. Elias M, Muhlen GS, McKey D, Roa AC, Tohme J (2004) Genetic diversity of traditional South American landraces of cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz): an analysis using microsatellites. Economic Botany 58: 242-256 [PDF]
7. Nottenburg C and Roa-Rodríguez C (2008) Agrobacterium-mediated Gene Transfer: A Lawyer’s Perspective, in: Tzfira, T and Citovsky, V (eds.) Agrobacterium: From Biology to Biotechnology, Springer. [PDF, final draft of published version]
8. Broothaerts W, Mitchell HJ, Weir B, Kaines S, Smith LMA, Yang W, Mayer JE, Roa‑Rodríguez C, Jefferson RA (2005) Gene transfer to plants by diverse species of bacteria, Nature 433: 629-633 [PDF]
9. Roa-Rodríguez C (2003) Promoters Used to Regulate Gene Expression, Patent Landscapes, original version (210 p) [PDF], online version (last update 2006)
10. Roa-Rodríguez C and Nottenburg C (2003) Antibiotic Resistance Genes and Their Uses in Genetic Transformation, Patent Landscapes, original version (56 p) [PDF], online version (last update 2006)
11. Roa-Rodríguez C and Nottenburg C (2001) Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, Patent Landscapes, version 3, 2003 (360 p) [PDF], online version (last update 2006)