Conference: Plant Genome Engineering: From Lab to Field, Breckenridge, Colorado, April 3-6, 2020

Keystone Symposia On Molecular And Cellular Biology, Silverthorne CO

Investigators

Abstract

The Keystone Symposia meeting on Plant Genome Engineering: From Lab to Field will bring leaders in plant genome biology together to unravel the complexity of plant genome engineering. It is anticipated that the conference will catalyze rapid advances in scientific knowledge, supporting improved agricultural practices to feed the world while minimizing negative impacts of agricultural activities. Additionally, this conference will enhance infrastructure by providing a forum to enable networking and formation of new collaborations among senior scientists, trainees, and junior investigators in the plant genome editing field. Keystone Symposia conferences also provide additional value and importance to nurturing the next generation of scientists by providing them with the opportunity to actively take part in discussions and poster sessions. Moreover, this conference will acquaint trainees and investigators new to field with the state-of-the-art science in the field, provide opportunities for critical scientific feedback, and promote career development for trainees and new investigators, including opportunities both to see successful scientists present cutting-edge science and to network with prospective mentors and others who might contribute to their scientific and professional development. The Keystone Symposia conference on Plant Genome Engineering: From Lab to Field focuses on the latest gene editing advances, with an emphasis on the development of new tools and to understand how these tools might be used to dissect plant gene function and develop new crop traits. Although this field is still very young, it is maturing at a rapid pace. Originally, plant genome research had the primary goal to develop and implement tools and reagents that effectively target specific DNA sequences, a goal shared by researchers working on diverse systems, including plants, animals and fungi. With the advent of Transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) and shortly thereafter CRISPR/Cas systems, the DNA targeting problem was solved. Thus, the current goal of the field is to efficiently implement gene editing in specific biological systems. Therefore, this conference brings together scientists who work on tool development, plant transformation, plant breeding and crop trait development. This conference will provide a platform which should enable a swift transfer of the benefits of the technology to that field. This conference will help build a community of researchers interested in overcoming the obstacles in plant gene editing, which include the delivery of gene editing reagents to plant cells and improved methods of plant transformation. This community is essential to move the field forward, as found by evidence of a previous National Science Foundation (NSF) conference which identified certain bottlenecks in plant gene editing. This award is supported jointly by the Plant Genome Research Program in the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems and the Systems and Synthetic Biology Program in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.