Pavel presented the Czech SynBio Node mission at the EBRC Global Forum 3.0 in San Diego
Pavel represented Masaryk University and the consortium of Czech academic laboratories dedicated to engineering biology, Czech SynBio Node (https://czechsynbionode.cz/), as the sole delegate from Central and Eastern Europe at the Engineering Biology Research Consortium (https://ebrc.org/) Global Forum 3.0, held on March 27–28 at the J. Craig Venter Institute in San Diego.
This gathering of invited speakers—representatives of local synthetic biology communities—aims to connect these communities and discuss opportunities for their further development and collaboration to drive the advancement of bioengineering and the bioeconomy in different parts of the world.
The first day of the program featured presentations from representatives of participating countries (e.g., the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Spain, France, the UK, Thailand, and India), while the second day focused on discussions around topics such as research commercialization, international collaboration, risk management in synthetic biology, and mentoring new leaders in the field.
The conference highlighted significant differences in the level of development of engineering biology and biotechnology across various countries. The Czech Republic—unlike Denmark, where the bioeconomy accounts for 30% of GDP—despite its long-standing tradition in technical, engineering, and natural sciences and numerous positive indicators, is not currently a leader in this field. One contributing factor is the lack of a national strategy for developing the bioeconomy and biotechnology. However, there are many promising factors that could help improve the situation. Strengthening connections between key players in this field—both within the Czech Republic and internationally—is one of the essential prerequisites for advancing engineering biology and biotechnology in our country. We believe that the establishment of the Czech SynBio Node will contribute to this.
The event at the J. Craig Venter Institute and the presence of Dr. Venter himself, along with his colleagues who contributed to sequencing the human genome and creating the first bacterium with a fully synthetic genome, were remarkable experiences in and of themselves, even beyond the packed program. We look forward to the next EBRC Global Forum in two years, which is expected to take place in Europe—hopefully with broader representation from countries in the Central and Eastern European region.
