Plant Engineering in the Synthetic Biology Era

The Gordon Research Seminar on Plant Metabolic Engineering is a unique forum for graduate students, post-docs and other scientists with comparable levels of experience and education, to present and exchange novel unpublished data and cutting edge ideas.

This meeting will focus on the fundamental understanding of plant biochemical pathways, and their applications towards the production of compounds for the bioeconomy. In order to utilize a synthetic biology approach for the economically viable production of plant metabolites, there is a need for the elucidation of biochemical pathways through gene discovery, an understanding of how biochemical pathways are compartmentalized and regulated, as well as an understanding how this information can be combined to engineer the production of high value compounds. This meeting will bring together early career scientists from broad disciplines to discuss many of the key issues facing the application of synthetic biology to plant metabolic engineering. In addition we will have a career panel discussion, with scientists from academia, industry and government, focusing on the difficult transition between PhD and post-doctoral roles, to other diverse careers in science.