To begin, I need to say what an event the BIO International Convention is. This afternoon’s exhibition session started off with a bang with the formal opening of the Canada Pavilion. This was followed closely by the opening of the BioAlberta Pavilion where I had the pleasure of briefly meeting and talking with the Honourable Doug Horner, Minister of Advanced Education and Technology. I was also pleased at the level of interest both the poster and the Genome Alberta booth received. I had numerous discussions about the project with people who work in all aspects of the biotechnology field. Interestingly, many of them were not researchers. Quite a few were drawn by the poster, but even more stopped to look at the slide show of images we displayed to reflect the project. The scanning electron microscope images were a really big draw. From all the discussions I had today, one stood out. Two gentlemen from Malaysia approached the Genome Alberta booth, drawn to the pine beetle project due a similar situation they were experiencing with an important crop plant. They were intrigued by the integrative genomics approach we were taking and felt it had direct applicability to their situation. To me this demonstrates the broad applicability of our approach and the various scenarios it can be applied too. I definitely look forward to another interesting and engaging day tomorrow.  Who knows who else could drop by the booth?



Discussing the Mountain Pine Beetle Epidemic Project with the Honourable Doug Horner (right) at the Genome Alberta Booth at BIO 2008