Newcotiana 1st Annual meeting was held on 5 – 6 march 2019 hosted by the PGB Research group of the IBMCP (CSIC-UPV) at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. The meeting was attended by 46 attendees with representatives of all participating institutions and the Advisory Board. In addition to NEWCOTIANA internal reunions, the meeting included one afternoon of joint sessions with the H2020 Pharma Factory project (Grant Agreement No 774078) to collectively discuss the work progress in public engagement and regulatory issues.
The meeting ended with the open workshop “Plant Biofactories in the Genome Engineering Era” devoted to technical and regulatory issues of Plant Biofactories and NPBTs, including the implications of the recent verdict of the European Court of Justice on gene-editing. The workshop, that counted also with the participation of CHIC (Grant Agreement No 760891), brought together experts on CRISPR/Cas technology and regulation and included the presentation of the N. benthamiana genome generated in the NEWCOTIANA project with a practical demonstration of the Apollo based genome browser. The workshop attracted over 100 external registrants including researchers from public institutions, industry representatives and students.
