Generation Sambas into Annual Confab

The Generation Challenge Program holds its third Annual Research Meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil, 12-16 September 2006

Every year, the Generation Challenge Program holds an Annual Research Meeting (ARM) that brings together project leaders and partners to present the progress of their research and to discuss scientific issues of relevance to the future of the Program. The ARM is held at a different location each year, and this year sunny Sao Paulo, Brazil, served as the meeting venue. EMBRAPA, the Brazilian Agriculture Corporation and a member of the Generation consortium, was the official host of the meeting. For 5 days, 200 scientists from all over the world mingled at the Caesar Business Hotel and Conference Center in Sao Paulo, listened to each other's presentations and participated in brainstorming sessions on how to address such scientifically complex issues as phenotyping and candidate genes.

Brazilian Vice Minister of Agriculture Luis Gomes de Souza provided the welcoming and opening remarks, and Geraldo Eugenio de França, executive director of EMBRAPA, also gave an opening speech. The keynote speech was provided by Alysson Paulinelli, joint winner of the 2006 World Food Prize and former Brazilian minister of agriculture, who played a critical role in transforming the Cerrado - a tropical savannah stretching across Brazil that accounts for 22 percent of the country's area - from closed land into a highly productive agricultural region.

The plenary sessions featured presentations by experts on research themes central to Generation, such as exploiting allelic diversity, gene discovery and marker development, and molecular breeding. Generation researchers also presented the products that have already been developed, such as decision support tools for marker-assisted breeding, low-cost marker technologies, data templates and the central registry, marker kits, and training materials. A poster session featured over 100 posters of current Generation projects.

"This year's Annual Research Meeting was a great success," comments Generation Director Jean-Marcel Ribaut. "We are grateful to our Brazilian hosts for facilitating the logistics of this large meeting, as well as to all the participants, who helped create a collegial atmosphere for sharing science."

Presentations from the meeting are available on CD-ROM upon request from Generation headquarters and also from the Generation webpage.

The venue and dates for the 2007 Generation ARM will be announced in early 2007.