WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18
BIOFUELS – A RIPE FIELD FOR RESEARCH OR NOT?
Conveners: Sylvia A. Mitchell, University of the West Indies and David D. Songstad,
Monsanto
8:00 am – 10:00 pm Plenary
Symposium Presidio
I and II
Obtaining fuels from living plants, rather than plants
turned into to fuel many eons ago, appears to have become necessary if we are
going to continue to fuel development and prosperity. Some of
the issues to consider include: what is the historical background to biofuel production?, what plant species to use?, do we
limit the plant species used to non-food plants?, how do we obtain economical
levels of biofuel from plant species?, which
countries should be involved and how?, do we use prime land or can we use
marginal land?, what are the best practices at present and how can we learn
from them?, what is the best way forward?. The speakers have been chosen from a variety of backgrounds and will
present recent data to allow for discussion of these considerations and
identify some ways forward – for research and for development.
8:00 Introduction (P. M. Pijut)
8:05 PS-11 The Impact of Improved Traits and Genetics on Biofuel Production
Michael Edgerton, Monsanto Company
8:40 PS-12 70 Years of Lessons on Biofuel
Production from Brazil
Luciano
Nass, USDA-ARS, and David Ellis, USDA-ARS
9:15 PS-13 Biofuel Development in the Caribbean – The Pros and Cons
Sylvia Adjoa Mitchell, University of the West Indies
9:35 Wrap
Up
9:45 Discussion
10:00 am – 10:30 am Coffee
Break Turquoise
Ballroom Foyer
EMERGING
TECHNOLOGIES
Convener: Linda B. Jacobsen, Berit Biotech,
LLC
10:30 am – 12:00 pm Animal
Symposium Coronado
I
Functional assays are measured on cultured cells at
one or a few time points after some precipitating event such as transfection with a nucleic acid, addition of drug, or time
after plating. The assay time (4 hours,
24 hours, 48 hours, 1 week etc.) is often selected
empirically based on the results of the functional assay in treated and control
cultures. The time selected may be when
there is maximal difference between treated and control cultures without regard
for other biological changes occurring in the cells. This session will present new non-invasive
technologies that permit measurement of the biological state of the living cells
before, during and after the treatment to aid in better selecting time points
for analysis, and understanding the other events happening in the cells during
the experiments. Additionally these
technologies can be used for direct study of effects
of drugs and other biological materials.
The technologies to be presented are distinctly
different, one measuring electrical impedance, and the other measuring oxygen
consumption rate and extracellular acidification
rate. The third presentation in this session will be a new
micro-incubator concept in which living cells can be viewed
and tested without effects caused by removal from an incubator.
Attend this session to learn how measurements in living cells in 24-well,
96-well cultures and in micro-incubators can provide you new
understandings of the kinetics in your cultures during the experiment resulting
in better experiments and data interpretation.
10:30 Introduction
(L. B. Jacobsen)
10:35 A-18 Using
Cell Sensor Impedance Technology for Label-free and Real-time Cell-based Assays
Yama
Abassi, ACEA Biosciences Inc.
11:00 A-19 Extracellular
Flux Measurements Provide a New Window on Cellular Bioenergetics
George Rogers, Seahorse BioScience
11:25 A-20 A
Hybrid CMOS/PDMS Microsystem
for Autonomous Cell Culture and Incubation
Jennifer
Blain Christien, Arizona State University
11:50 Discussion
PLANT
MODIFICATION FOR INCREASED BIOFUEL
PRODUCTION
Convener: Zeng-Yu Wang, The
Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation
10:30 am – 12:00 pm Plant
Symposium Presidio
I and II
Plant
biomass has the potential to play a major role in the substitution of fossil
fuels with renewable resources. Biomass available for energy on a sustainable basis includes
herbaceous crops and woody species. To date, most ethanol is
derived from starch or sugar crops by fermentation. The ability to
produce cellulosic ethanol from low-cost biomass will
be key in making biofuel
competitive with gasoline. The energy in lignocellulosic
biomass is largely in plant cell walls. Cell wall recalcitrance has been identified as a
major limitation to the economic production of ethanol from plant biomass. The
cost of ethanol production from lignocellulosic
materials is relatively high based on current
conversion technologies; the main challenge is the low yield and high cost of
the pretreatment/hydrolysis process. Speakers in this session will highlight
recent advances in using biotechnological approaches to improve biofuel production from different biomass crops. The new
approaches include genetic engineering of metabolic pathways, reduction of cell
wall recalcitrance and improvement of biomass production.
10:30 Introduction (Z.-Y. Wang)
10:35 P-30 Genetic Improvement of Dedicated Energy
Crops
Steven
R. Thomas, Ceres Inc.
10:55 P-31 Genetic Manipulation of Lignin
Biosynthesis to Improve Biomass Characteristics for Agro-industrial Processes
Fang Chen, The
Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation
11:15 P-32 Modifying the Corn Genome to Improve Its
Biomass
Biofuel Production
Sanghyuck Park, Michigan State University
11:35 P-33 Agrobacterium-mediated
Transformation of Switchgrass
Zeng-Yu Wang, The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation
11:55 Discussion
PLANT
TRANSFORMATION
Moderator: Dennis J. Gray, University of Florida
10:30 am – 12:30 pm Plant
Contributed Paper Session Presidio
III and IV
10:30 P-1012 Overexpression of the Arabidopsis Transcription Factor REVOLUTA
Leads to Increased Soybean Seed Size and Yield
Rugang Li, Targeted Growth,
Bonnie Bancroft, Kristina Lum, Thu Nguyen, Jay De Rocher, and Daina Simmonds
10:45 P-1013 Field
Testing Transgenic Grapevine for Disease Resistance
Dennis J. Gray,
University of Florida, Z. T. Li, S. A. Dhekney, D. L. Hopkins, and T. W. Zimmerman
11:00 P-1014 Overcoming
Obstacles to Genetic Transformation in Vitis
Sadanand
A. Dhekney, University of Florida, Z. T. Li, T. W. Zimmerman, and D.
J. Gray
11:15 P-1015 Camelina sativa Transformation by Floral Dip and
Simple Large-scale Screening of Markerless Transformants
Xunjia
Liu, Targeted Growth Canada, Sharon Leung, Jennifer Brost, Suzanne Rooke, and Thu
Nguyen
11:30 P-1016 Comparative
Analysis of Diploid and Polyploid Buffalograss
Based on Transient Gene Expression and In Vitro Regeneration
Hikmet
Budak, Sabanci University
11:45 P-1017 Genetic Transformation in Diploid
Turkish Brachypodium distachyon Based on a Well-established Tissue
Culture System
Bahar
Sogutmaz Ozdemir,
Sabanci University, and H. Budak
12:00 P-1018 An Efficient
Protocol for Stable Transformation of Glycin max L. and Capsicum annuum
L. by Agroinjection
Zia Muhammad, Quaid-i-Azam Univeristy
12:15 P-1019 Enhancing
Agrobacterium-mediated Transformation
Efficiency of Sugarcane: Progress Towards an
Efficient, Genotype-independent Method
Harjeet Kaur Khanna, Queensland University of Technology, M. Bokan,
M. Harrison, L. Kancherela, M. B. Dickman,
and J. L. Dale