From 5–7 March 2009 GCP held a workshop on molecular breeding (MB), bringing together more than 70 participants from the GCP community and beyond. The meeting's primary goal was to spur focused debates, with input from both industry and the public sector, on the definition of, and perspectives on, molecular-assisted breeding (MAB) in the context of a proposed MB platform.
The proposed Platform will serve as a one-stop-shop for information, analytical tools and related services to design, conduct and analyse MAB experiments.
The three-day event followed a tight schedule, structured around the sharing of viewpoints and experiences followed by time-restricted question and answer sessions; an overview of the proposed MB platform, and an examination of use cases, support services and analytical and visualisation tools. The heavy content was broken into manageable pieces through the incorporation of interactive World Café sessions and smaller parallel group discussions.