Pre-Conference Workshop Day
Monday, February 22

WORKSHOP A: 9:00-11:00AM

Biologics 101 – An Introduction to the AgBiologicals Market

This session will provide an overview of the AgBiologicals
market as a whole, drawing on previous successes and
failures and looking at how the microbial market can learn
to improve future research and product development.

Topics to include:

• How is the market segmented?
• Who are the key players in the space?
• What are the market dynamics?
• What are the current bottlenecks in the supply chain?

Workshop Leaders

Bruce Caldwell
Chief Executive Officer
3Bar Biologics

 

Bruce Caldwell (1)

Jamie Bacher
Chief Executive Officer
Boost Biomes

Jamie Bacher

WORKSHOP B 12:00-2:00PM

Genetics, Synthetic Biology and Engineering: What Future Role Will They Play?

An area rapidly growing in interest is understanding links between a plants genome and microbes to breed crops that are beneficial for the use of microbes. Furthermore, with gene modifying and gene editing tools becoming cheaper and more widely used, researchers are looking at using tools to alter microbes to improve their efficacy. However, there still remains a number of challenges in understanding genetic links, as well as fully harnessing tools to synthetic alter microbes.

Jean-Michel Ane –

Discoveries to Improve Nitrogen Fixation in Cereals Through Engineering Root Nodules in Non-Leguminous Crops

Asaf Levy -

Deciphering the genetic basis of microbial interactions with plants and microbes

Rodridgo Ledesma-Amaro -

Synthetic biology tools enable the creation of synthetic microbial communities with enhanced functionalities

Workshop Leaders

Jean Michel-Ane

Jean-Michel Ané
Professor
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Asaf Levy

Asaf Levy
Assistant Professor
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Rodrigo

Rodrigo Ledesma Amaro
Researcher
Imperial College London

WORKSHOP C 3:00-5:00PM

Exploring the Importance of Developing Partnerships & How to Attract Funding to Your Research

Partnerships between academia-start-ups, start-upsbig
Ag and academia-BigAg are incredibly important to
drive microbial research forward. Furthermore, given
the current global pandemic and the resulting financial
troubles, securing funding from your research has become
even more important. This session will look at successful
partnerships that have been set-up as well as hearing
from investors and those that have successfully attracted
investment to their companies.

Topics to include:

• Presentation by Kellye Eversole – Building Public-Private Partnerships and Consortia
• Overview of and lessons learned from several highly successful public-private precompetitive research projects
• Discussion of key considerations for establishing a public-private partnership
• Opportunities for public-private partnerships within the phytobiomes research and regulatory space

Ron Meeusen

Ron Meeusen
Managing Director
Cultivian Sandbox