Madelyn Johnstone-Robertson is an alumnus of University of Cape Town (UCT) obtaining a BSc Chemical Engineering. During one of her undergraduate courses (Bioprocess Engineering) the “bug” bit her and from there onwards she was fascinated by the biological side of Chemical Engineering. She subsequently obtained her PhD in 2012 at the University of Cape Town in the Centre for Bioprocess Engineering Research (CeBER) where her research focused on the production and downstream recovery of the enzyme glucose oxidase from fungal sources such as Aspergillus niger NRRL-3  and Penicillium sp. CBS 120262 . During his period, she has also gained commercial experience on enzyme production from animal and plant sources whilst working for an internationally recognized enzyme producing company (BBI Enzymes SA Pty (Ltd) and has done research in the Microbiology and Process Engineering departments of the University of Stellenbosch on enzyme production for the food industry.

She has been employed in January 2014 as a Research Officer at CeBER with research investigation into the production of biopolymers, bioreactors, enzyme production and wastewater biorefineries. She joined Biovac in 2017 as an Upstream Senior Scientist (fermentation) where she ventured into the vaccine arena and learned more about GMP, CMC and Group B Strep among various other things. In late 2021 she joined Afrigen Biologics in the mRNA Hub as a Bioprocess Specialist and GMP Implementer with a strong focus on CMC.