Stan Allen is one of the pioneers of ploidy manipulation in shellfish. He received his BA from Franklin and Marshall College and his Masters in Zoology from the University of Maine, Orono. At Maine, in 1976, Stan began work on induced triploidy in Atlantic salmon and eastern oysters, Crassostrea virginica, and published the first paper on triploid induction in shellfish (with J. Stanley and H. Hidu). Stan also worked on triploidy in several other species of shellfish in Maine before going on for his Ph.D. at the University of Washington. Work on polyploidy in Washington was principally on the Pacific oyster, C. gigas, but Stan also developed a method for polyploid induction using hydrostatic pressure and applied it to Pacific oysters and salmon. He holds a patent on this process.

Stan's focus in Washington was moving research results from the lab to industry. He worked closely with major shellfish companies on the Pacific Northwest, and when he left in 1987, oyster hatcheries there were well on their way to the current level of production of triploids – about 40% of hatchery production.

After a short post-doc at the Center of Marine Biotechnology at the University of Maryland, Stan went to Rutgers University’s Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory in New Jersey and began a breeding program for shellfish, including work on selection for disease resistance in eastern oysters, hybridization, and chromosome set manipulation. Stan began working closely with Dr. Ximing Guo in 1992 when Ximing came on as a post-doc with Stan. In 1993, they first developed tetraploid oysters that is the foundation of 4Cs Breeding Technologies, Inc., founded in 1997. Ximing and Stan first obtained a patent for this technology in 1998.

Dr. Guo is a shellfish geneticist and Associate Professor at the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory, Rutgers University. He has been working on shellfish genetics and breeding in China and the US for over 20 years. He received his BS degree from the Ocean University of China (Qingdao), where he first learned the culture of a variety of fish and shellfish species. He came to the US for graduate studies in 1985 and received his MS and PhD from University of Washington, Seattle. He studied finfish genetics for his MS and oyster genetics for his PhD programs, both under the supervision of Dr. William K. Hershberger.

Dr. Guo became interested in tetraploid oysters in 1987 and subsequently conducted his dissertation research on tetraploid induction in the Pacific oyster. In 1992, Dr. Guo joined Dr. Stan Allen’s lab at Rutgers University as a postdoctoral associate and continued work on tetraploid oysters. In 1993, Guo and Allen developed a novel procedure for tetraploid induction and obtained viable tetraploids in the Pacific oyster. Guo and Allen’s work has received patents in the US, EU, China, Australia and South Africa. The patent has led to the establishment of 4Cs Breeding Technologies, Inc. and rapid commercialization of the technology. Dr. Guo has also developed tetraploid eastern oysters from the Rutgers disease-resistant strains.

Besides polyploid work, Dr. Guo maintains an active research program in oyster genomics and molecular breeding biotechnology. He and his colleague, Dr. Ziniu Yu, published the first genetic linkage map of the eastern oyster. He and his colleagues are developing molecular tools for shellfish breeding. Dr. Guo holds adjunct/guest professorships at several institutions in China and the US.