To support the Society’s vision to encourage education and scientific informational exchange, the Plant Biotechnology Section is pleased to announce the 2022 Student Oral Presentation Competition. Student competition finalists were selected based on the quality of the abstracts. A panel of judges will evaluate the presentations at the meeting. Criteria for the evaluation include experimental design, data analysis, proper interpretation of the results, originality of the study, technical difficulty, appearance and ability of the student candidate to present it. Winners will be presented with a certificate and a cash award at the meeting.

Have you been looking for how to write a successful research proposal and how to get funding for your research as a graduate student? Have you been searching for how to find the right funding agency for your research or even thought about writing a proposal that will be accepted by your funding agency or your supervisor? Or are you confused about how to target the key areas of a topic that will make your research proposal interesting for the jury and funding agency? If that’s the case, this is your golden opportunity! Come to the student networking luncheon to find all the answers you have been waiting for. We are putting together a panel of researchers that will answer all of your questions and will help alleviate any confusion.  If you are a new Master’s or Ph.D. student who needs to write a proposal, then researchers will be available to assist you and provide you with information about how to find the perfect topic for your research as well as all the material that you need to write a proposal. If you are a student and you need to find a public or private funding agency to fund your research, our professionals will help you understand the requirements of the various funding agencies. Similarly, if you want to apply for a scholarship to study abroad and your scholarship requires a strong research proposal, this panel will tell you how they chose students for these positions which can help you get answers to your questions. Professionals will also share their academic experiences and discuss how they coped while pursuing their graduate degrees. This workshop may also introduce you to your new research mentor, supervisor, collaborator, and/or external internship opportunity.

This joint symposium will focus on new developments and issues related to the use of vaccines.  The rapid development and deployment of the COVID-19 vaccine has generated a lot of interest around how vaccines are developed. This session will invite expert faculty to discuss the latest information on vaccines including the future of vaccine development and surveillance.

Employing emergent technologies to optimize both human and plant health are important to the progress of our society and the world.  Artificial intelligence and machine learning are changing the way scientists diagnose disease, identify effective drug modalities, analyze large datasets, and report outcomes.  In this session, leaders in the field of AI and machine learning with specific interests in cancer, pharmacology, and crop sustainability will discuss current and ongoing efforts in this very exciting and dynamic field of investigation.

The application of tissue culture and biotechnology is becoming a vital component of Cannabis businesses, especially as the market grows globally.  Recent studies have found that plant pathogens have led to billions of dollars in damages to the Cannabis industry in North America, and advances in Cannabis Biotechnology have been identified as a potential solution to some of these problems.  Additionally, the industry has had to innovate and draw from research and academia to fulfill the skyrocketing demand for healthy plants.  This session brings together industry and academic researchers who are actively attempting to understand the challenges faced by current Cannabis businesses and the gaps that remain in our understanding of the horticulture and biology of Cannabis in the modern context.  We hope to present information on treating pathogens (especially hop latent viroid), advances to Cannabis tissue culture techniques and advances in acclimatization of lab-grown plants back to greenhouses to be ready for cultivation.

Genome editing has the potential to speed up the pace of plant breeding and trait development.  As researchers seek to gain a greater understanding of CRISPR/Cas and related technologies the need to rapidly test the effectiveness of a multitude of editing concepts has become a pressing need.  Rapid assay systems provide the opportunity to evaluate large numbers of constructs without engaging in the lengthy regeneration of mature plants, thereby helping manage costs and resources effectively.

With the increasing threats of habitat loss, unsustainable use, and climate change to the world’s plant biodiversity, the need for ex situ conservation of plant genetic resources is also increasing.  This is most efficiently accomplished with seed banks, but there are predicted to be tens of thousands of species for which conventional seed banking will be unworkable.  These species are collectively known as exceptional plants and most will require cryopreservation methods in order to conserve them long-term.  In vitro methods will be critical for many of these species, for providing tissues for cryopreservation and for propagating and recovering plants to restore species in the wild.  Thus, there is an urgent need for developing in vitro protocols for a wide range of threatened plant taxa.  This session provides a look at the work of three laboratories that are focused on this goal, representing a variety of species and illustrating the approaches and challenges of this work.

Single-cell omics technologies, such as genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics have undergone rapid growth over the past decade. These technologies can analyze many cells at a high resolution making it a valuable tool in characterizing rare cell types and better understanding diverse cell states. Studying the cell-cell variation within cell populations can reveal unique mechanisms related to disease pathogenesis. The goal of this session is to describe the current state of research utilizing single-cell technologies and provide key examples of how these technologies are being used to identify how cellular heterogeneity contributes to human disease.