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Agriculture: Africa's 'engine for growth'

Plant science and biotechnology hold the key

This three-day international symposium is designed to bring together scientists from Africa, Europe and the USA to examine how new advances in plant science research and developing technologies can be used to the benefit of African agriculture. The symposium will present recent advances in plant science research and current views on innovations required for the development of agriculture in Africa, as well as analysis of how education may be enhanced to advance uptake of novel technologies. The meeting will bring together equal numbers of plant scientists, biotechnologists, agronomists, traditional breeders and educators from Africa and the rest of the world in order to discuss the role of novel, dynamic and relevant technologies and their applications in agriculture. In this way we aim to improve interactions between labs in Africa and other countries in research and education.

In addition, this meeting will provide tools for education. Videos and podcasts arising from this meeting will be linked directly to the AAB and Rothamsted websites.

There will be a funders' forum on the evening of Monday 12 October, hosted by Rothamsted International. On Tuesday evening, following the poster session, there will be a tour of the experimental plots at Rothamsted Research, together with a conference dinner at the Harpenden House Hotel.

Invited Speakers Include:

• Lorna Casselton (The Royal Society, UK)
• Wayne Powell (IBERS, Aberystwyth, UK)
• David Howlett (DFID, Glasgow, UK)
• Frank van Breusegem (Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) - Department of Plant Systems Biology, Belgium)
• Marcelle Holsters (Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) - Department of Plant Systems Biology, Belgium)
• John Pickett (Dept of Biological Chemistry, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, UK)
• Julie Scholes (University of Sheffield-Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, UK )
• Howard Atkinson (University of Leeds-Centre for Plant Sciences, UK)
• Melaku Gedil (IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria)
• Michael Meztlaff (Bayer BioScience N.V., Belgium)
• Khaled Masmoudi (Plant Molecular Genetics Laboratory, Centre of Biotechnology of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia)
• Marc van Montagu (Gent University-Institute of Plant Biotechnology for Developing Countries, Belgium)
• Jonathan Jones (Sainsbury Laboratory, John Innes Centre, UK)
• Ingo Potrykus (Humanitarian Golden Rice Board & Network)
• Dominique Michaud (University of Laval, Quebec, Canada)

Chairs Include:

• Rachel Chikwamba (CSIR, Pretoria, South Africa)
• Ignatious Ncube (University of Limpopo, Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Biotechnology, South Africa)
• Riekert Van Heerden (South African Sugarcane Research Institute (SASRI), South Africa)
• Percy Chimwamurombe (University of Namibia - Dept of Biological Sciences, Namibia)
• Karl Kunert (University of Pretoria-FABI, South Africa)

In addition to offers of platform presentations and posters from Africa, we are also hoping to receive offers from European countries on their work related to this topic.

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