Rob Cicchillo Chief Scientific Officer

Rob Cicchillo is the Chief Scientific Officer at Oerth Bio, where he provides strategic scientific leadership, overseeing the company’s research and development programs. He leads and mentors the R&D team, fosters key strategic partnerships, and engages with investors and stakeholders to drive the company’s scientific initiatives forward. Rob ensures that Oerth Bio’s scientific strategy aligns with its overall business goals.

Before joining Oerth Bio, Rob spent over 15 years in the agricultural industry, with a focus on biotechnology and crop protection R&D. At Corteva Agriscience, he led the biochemistry group responsible for characterizing new insecticidal and herbicide tolerance traits. In this role, Rob collaborated across discovery, regulatory, legal, and commercial teams to guide the Enlist® product lines through late-stage development. He also served as the leader of herbicide discovery biology for six years, where his team focused on discovering herbicides with new modes of action.

Rob also co-led Corteva’s efforts in Natural Products discovery, modernizing the platform using advanced ‘omics approaches in collaboration with biotechnology and digital colleagues. Most recently, he led external collaborations within Corteva’s Crop Protection Discovery & Development organization, fostering partnerships that drove value through investments in innovative and disruptive technologies.

Rob holds an M.S. in organic chemistry from Youngstown State University and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Penn State University. He also completed a Howard Hughes post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before joining Dow AgroSciences.