The Plant Metabolic Engineering GRC is a premier, international scientific conference focused on advancing the frontiers of science through the presentation of cutting-edge and unpublished research, prioritizing time for discussion after each talk and fostering informal interactions among scientists of all career stages. The conference program includes an array of speakers and discussion leaders from institutions and organizations worldwide, concentrating on the latest developments in the field. The conference is five days long and held in a remote location to increase the sense of camaraderie and create scientific communities, with lasting collaborations and friendships. In addition to premier talks, the conference has designated time for poster sessions from individuals of all career stages, and afternoon free time and communal meals allow for informal networking opportunities with leaders in the field.
The 2027 conference will focus on plant and natural products as sources of functional ingredients, industrially-relevant compounds, and health-promoting phytochemicals, highlighting recent advances in pathway discovery, biosynthesis, and metabolic diversification that address global challenges in food, health, and energy security. Key themes will include carbon flux and metabolic regulation, examining how plants capture, allocate, and reprogram carbon to support growth, stress tolerance, and the synthesis of fuels, materials, and specialized metabolites. A central focus of the meeting will be plant metabolic engineering for resilience, exploring strategies to understand, predict, and manipulate metabolic networks to enhance environmental stress tolerance while maintaining metabolic homeostasis. Discussions will integrate systems biology, synthetic biology, biochemistry, emerging computational approaches to elucidate metabolic pathways and identify leverage points for improving agronomic performance and production efficiency.
By emphasizing mechanistic insight, quantitative understanding of metabolic flux, and innovative engineering strategies, this conference aims to advance fundamental knowledge while fostering interdisciplinary dialogue across plant biology, chemistry, engineering, biotechnology, and computational biology. Through dynamic discussions and interdisciplinary engagement, the meeting aims to identify emerging challenges, stimulate new collaborations, and shape the future directions of plant metabolic engineering.
