Taj completed his PhD at the University of Adelaide in 2018. During his PhD, he used CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technology to create genic male-sterile wheat lines for hybrid seed production. Taj joined CSIRO (Agriculture & Food) as a Postdoctoral Fellow working on various synthetic biology projects focused primarily on crop metabolic engineering for plant-based oil production. He was then the lead Research Scientist on a CSIRO Synthetic Biology Future Science Platform (FSP) project in which he developed a platform for high-throughput screening of complex gene libraries in plant protoplasts. Taj joined QUT’s Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy (Banana Biotechnology team) in 2023 and is working on improving fruit quality and resistance to Panama disease tropical race 4 (TR4) using non-GM engineering approaches.