Day 1

15:55 – 16:15 Speaker 1: Dr. Seyi Ebun Adeboye, NBDA
Understanding farmers’ preferences for the establishment of Agrobacterium-mediated transformation in selected tomato cultivars using gene editing in Nigeria

16:15 – 16:35 Speaker 2: Mr. Sidney Engelbrecht, Africa Bioethics Network / KAUST
Legal and Ethical Frameworks for Access and Benefit-sharing Genetics sources in the context of the Nagoya Protocol in the Southern African Development Community Region

16:35 – 16:55 Speaker 3: Prof. Dr. Herve Vanderschuren, KU Leuven
Fostering adoption of agricultural biotechnology in the Global South through effective technology transfer and responsible communication

16:55 – 17:40 Panel discussion: Ethical and Social Issues in African Plant Genomics
Moderator: Anthony Aseta
Panel: Mercury Shitindo, Devang Mehta, Sidney Engelbrecht, Leena Tripathi, Jacky Kado

13:45 – 14:15 Plenary 2: Dr. Kwasi Agbleke, SITA
The heteroblasticity of flowering plants.

14:15 – 14:35 Speaker 1: Dr. Titus Magomere, Kenyatta University
Harnessing the power of genome editing in species with polyploidy, paleopolyploidy and chromosome inversions in their genomes

14:35 – 14:55 Speaker 2: Dr. Rachita Srivastava, MPI for Plant Breeding
Comparative demographic analysis of Cardamine hirsuta and Arabidopsis thaliana

14:55 – 15:15 Speaker 3: Mr. Sadam Sulaiman Indabo, Ahmadu Bello University
Dissecting genomic regions and underlying candidate genes in groundnut MAGIC population for drought tolerance

15:15 – 15:35 Speaker 4: Ms. Alaa Ahmed, BBRC
Mining the gene pool of Sudanese wild sorghum for durable Striga hermonthica resistance

11:05 – 11:25 Speaker 1: Dr. Madeleine Seale, AAAS
Behind the Scenes at Science

11:25 – 11:45 Speaker 2: Inqaba Biotec
Sequencing with the PacBio Revio Platform

11:45 – 12:05 Speaker 3: Dr. Pablo Manavello, ASPB
The Plant Cell journal

12:05 – 12:25 Speaker 4: Dr. Peter Nthiga, F&S Scientific
Illumina Technologies to Develop a Genomic Ecosystem for Plants

12:25 – 12:35 Speaker 5: Prof. Steven Runo for Plants People Planet, New Phytologist Foundation
Publishing your research in Plants, People, Planet

12:35 – 12:45: Excella Biotechnologies

9:00 – 9:15: Opening Remarks

9:15 – 9:45 Plenary 1: Dr. Leena Tripathi, IITA
Harnessing New Genomic Technologies for Sustainable Crop Improvement in Africa: Advances, Challenges, and Strategic Pathways

9:45 – 10:15 Speaker 1: Prof. Dr. Herve Vanderschuren, KU Leuven
High-throughput screening, gene discovery and transgene-free genome editing of banana and cassava for rapid delivery of improved farmer-preferred cultivars

10:15 – 10:45 Speaker 2: Prof. Ann Muigai, JKUAT
The Africa BioGenome Project