FABI members attend the twelfth Regional Plant Biotechnology Forum 2016-09-09
Members of Cereal Foliar Pathogen Research (CFPR), Molecular Plant Pathogen Interactions (MPPI) and Molecular Plant Physiology (MPP) research groups attended the African Centre for Gene Technologies (ACGT) Plant Biotechnology Forum on 8 September 2016 at the CSIR International Convention Centre. The forum topic was “Plant-based biologics” and the session was opened with a very informative talk from Prof. Herta Steinkellner from the University of Vienna, Austria. She described work her research team have done to manipulate glycosylation pathways in plants in order to enhance the biological activity of animal proteins produced in planta. In addition, Priyen Pillay, an alumni of the MPP group and now a postdoctoral researcher at CSIR Biosciences, highlighted research he undertook during his PhD to identify plant proteases that are expressed in response to the production of heterologous proteins in tobacco. The forum was well attended by delegates from the University of Pretoria, University of Johannesburg, Wits University, Agricultural Research Council and the CSIR, and there was ample time and opportunities to network with researchers from other organisations.