The 2nd Symposium of Society for Tropical Root and Tuber Crops & the 7th National Workshop on Cassava Biotechnology and Functional Genomics was successfully held in Haikou, Hainan, from Jan 10 to 12, 2014. More than 90 participants from various institutions attended the event.

The theme of symposium focused on the development of sustainable agricultural technology for promoting the industrialization of tropical root and tuber crops. Keynote speakers Prof. Yizheng Zhang from Sichuan University, Prof. Qingxiao Li from Hawaii university and Prof. Qin Ji from Huaiyin Normal University gave their excellent talks entitled by “Research on sweetpotato transcriptome”, “Potential applications of proteomics in cassava research”, and “The study on the platform of SDB-transgenic technique on the applications of starch modification of tropical root and tuber crops”, respectively. Fourteen selected participants also presented their recent progresses on topics including bioinformatics and -omics, mutation breeding and transformation technology, important biological process and functional genes, and production technology and practice. Honorary Director Feijie Lv addressed the importance and problem related to sustainable agriculture and industrialization of root and tuber crops, and encouraged young researchers to make efforts for agricultural development. The workshop promotes the exchange and cooperation among various research groups working on tropical root and tuber crops.

As the organizer, Prof. Peng Zhang, accompanied by Hongxia Wang and Qiuxiang Ma, attended the event and presented the recent progresses on cassava and sweetpotato biotechnology from SCCB.