Huntsville hosting international conference on peanut biotechnology

The world’s top researchers, scientists and peanut industry leaders are in Huntsville this week for the Advances in Arachis through Genomics and Biotechnology Conference.

The conference is today through Wednesday at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology.

“We are excited to host AAGB at HudsonAlpha this year,” HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology Faculty Investigator Dr. Josh Clevenger said. “We’re working to use the power of genomics to improve the world, and are privileged to host world-renowned researchers, scientists and students in the place that delivered the final cultivated peanut genome assembly, HudsonAlpha.”

This is the first time HudsonAlpha is hosting the conference. Attendees will spend the next 2 1/2 days exchanging ideas, expanding their networks and discussing the latest trends in the global peanut community. The meeting will also highlight young scientists, graduate students and postdocs.

“The AAGB meeting is a conduit for the international community of peanut scientists and stakeholders to come together and share knowledge, collaborate, and forge partnerships that will write the future of food security for this important, nutritious crop, that so many across the globe rely on,” Clevenger said.

The international peanut research community has traveled the globe since the first International Peanut Conference was held in China in 2006, with the goal of tackling the most important and complex problems facing peanut production: food safety and security, drought and heat stress, and aflatoxin contamination.

This year’s conference has a focus on sustainability. In that vein, attendees will be encouraged to download an online application that contains the information that is normally in the program booklet. That includes the conference schedule, research abstracts, keynote speaker details and more.

The online application was exclusively created by HudsonAlpha employees for the purpose of conference sustainability.