Dr. Miguel Rapela is an agricultural engineer specializing in genetics and plant breeding and holds a Ph.D. in Forestry and Agricultural Sciences from the National University of La Plata, Argentina, with a focus on intellectual property and regulatory matters. He is Executive Director of Research and Consulting at the Austral University Intellectual Property Centre, and a Professor and a member of the Academic Committee for the MSc course in Intellectual Property at the same University. He is also Head of Technology Transfer for the Genomic Platform, UBATEC SA and member of the Technical Committee of the Argentine Seed Commission (CONASE). He has been President of the Faculty of Agronomy Foundation (National University of Buenos Aires), a member of the Argentine Advisory Commission on Agricultural Biotechnology (CONABIA), Executive Director of the Argentine Seed Association (ASA) and of the Argentine Association of Plant Breeders (ArPOV), and Chairman of the Intellectual Property Committees of the International Seed Federation (ISF) and of the Seed Association of the Americas (SAA). He has published more than 120 technical papers and five books on intellectual property and regulatory matters, and has developed several new plant varieties registered at the Argentine National Seed Institute (INASE).