Dr Bronwyn Smithies is an accomplished plant scientist with a passion and tremendous talent for editing. Her academic specialities include biology, chemistry, agriculture and medical research, making her one of Capstone Editing’s most diversified medical and scientific editors.

Dr Smithies’ curiosity means that she naturally enjoys reading the vast range of material that crosses her desk while editing. She is highly motivated to ensure that each research story is presented clearly and effectively to its audience.

Dr Smithies’ PhD involved developing plants as ‘biofactories’ to produce modern medicine—a fascinating combination of modern genetic engineering and traditional plant-based medicine. She successfully redesigned a peptide from plants to incorporate new pharmaceutical properties while retaining its ability to be produced in plants. The specific type of peptide, a ‘cyclotide’, represents a class of circular peptides that can be redesigned to target many diseases, such as cancer, multiple sclerosis and obesity. Producing medicines in plants instead of labs is cleaner and greener and might open up pharmaceutical production for countries that cannot afford expensive laboratory infrastructure. Dr Smithies’ work contributes to an international movement to produce valuable compounds in plants, including pharmaceuticals, research agents, agricultural products and beauty products.

Dr Smithies’ career includes a PhD, first-class honours in stem cell research, a bachelor’s degree in medical research and biotechnology, experience in the agriculture industry and working for CSIRO. She appreciates the huge amount of effort that goes into academic writing (and the research behind it), so she is dedicated to ensuring that all the academic research she edits is presented in its absolute best light.

Having presented to colleagues, professionals, schools and the public, Dr Smithies also brings valuable science presentation and communication experience to her editing role. She strongly supports the accurate representation of research in a style that suits the target audience. She looks forward to editing each new document and ensuring that each piece of hard-earned work is well presented and informative.