This is the first of a newly created metabolic engineering (ME) workshop series sponsored by the International Metabolic Engineering Society, entitled Metabolic Engineering Summit 2017, to be held in Beijing, China. This international conference will bring together established researchers, young investigators, private sector scientists and engineers as well as graduate students to assess the present and chart the future of the rapidly developing field of metabolic engineering. To encourage interaction and further discussions, the entire meeting is held in a single-track format, with most meals taken together and with multiple social hours and poster sessions (typically presented by students, postdocs, or junior faculty/scientists). The theme of the MES workshop is termed "Metabolic Engineering in the era of Synthetic Biology". This conference is designed to achieve several NSF missions, including; enhancing collaboration with international communities, integrating the engineering sciences with the life sciences, encouraging research and development in multidisciplinary areas, and educating the next generation of young scientists.
The elements of the meeting will include a plenary address from Gregory Stephanopoulos (MIT, USA, scientific talks from leaders in the field, held in plenary format (no concurrent sessions), and poster sessions, with an emphasis on participation from graduate students, postdocs, and young investigators, held in the evenings. Session topics will include: Production of natural products using ME; Advancing a bio-economy using ME; ME as an enabling technology for driving innovation; and Using ME to address challenges of biorefineries.
