TomGEM partner Cathie Martin at the 2017 Winter School on Plant Biotechnology and Environmental Sustainability

Environmental sustainability is one of the leading inter-disciplinary topics today. Climate change and public concerns on food and environmental safety impose new challenges to researchers worldwide. Plant Biotechnology can help face these challenges with a number of innovative approaches and solutions, by exploiting the great potential of crops and wild species in providing society with healthy food and clean energy.

Plant Biotechnology relies on advancing basic research to unveil genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying plant physiology, and needs to develop new tools for an improvement of plant health and production. The Winter School on Plant Biotechnology and Environmental Sustainability therefore aimed at gathering knowledge in different fields, providing students with a comprehensive view of this research area as well as an awareness of cutting-edge methodological, experimental and practical aspects involved.

With a track record in plant science, TomGEM partner Prof. Cathie Martin was one of the invited speakers in session 2 “Metabolic Engineering of High Quality Products” and shared her experience with the participants delivering a talk titled “Developing tomato as a production system for high value metabolites” and the following discussion.

The Winter School was held from January 16^th-19^th, 2017at the University of Verona located in Alba di Canazei, in the beautiful Italian Dolomite Skiing area and was divided into four days, focusing on “Bioenergies”,”Metabolic Engineering of high quality products”, “Genotype by Environment Interactions” and “New Breeding Technologies”.

For more information please visit the Winter School´s website.