Highlights - TBGRC 2007-2008 Annual Meeting and Report

• Grant support strong
  - 800K to 1 million/yr in 07-09
  - Industry funds ~8% of total
  - Great leverage continues!

• Center for Advanced Forestry (CAFS) established (~19k/yr, National Science Foundation):
  NSF Center began at OSU, now includes NC State, Virginia Tech, and Purdue.

• Strong participation in national and international regulatory-biosafety activities.
  This includes production of a Society of American Foresters position statement o GMO trees, taking part in the intenational Public Research and Regulation Initiative meetings at the UN Convention on Biodiversity, attended Conventional meetings in Montreal, Rome, and Bonn.

• Participation in two USA National Research Council Committees.
  One concerns GE crops and trees (GMO Ecological Issues for Wildlands), and the other on the Future of Plant Genomics.

• Strauss led symposium called "Physiological sculpture of plants: New visions and capabilities for crop development, New Phytologist Tansley Symposium, in September 2008 at Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, Oregon USA.
  Its goal: Integration and vision about breakthrough possibilities based on new genomics and plant science.