DISCO 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.

Since the DISCO project provides one approach to explore new sustainable bio-sources and to develop renewable products, which in turn support the shift from a synthetic to bio-based production, the DISCO coordinator Prof. Paul Fraser presented the projects latest findings to early career researchers at the 2017 Winter School on Plant Biotechnology and Environmental Sustainability.

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 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.

The Winter School was held at 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.