I have encouraged postdocs and students to attend specific webinars or workshops that are relevant to their research. These are learning opportunities that otherwise are not that widely accessible or affordable. The distribution of job postings within the network also is very useful for prospective employees and employers and is done as a service!

PlantGENE has provided useful information, speakers, workshops, and advertising for our transformation facilities that are relevant to mature citrus transformation and gene editing. It has been a pleasure to be able to watch the Masterclass and Workshop presentations, which act to inspire new technologies in my lab. This has been important to our lab members as well since we cannot easily travel from the University of Florida because funds earned from the Mature Citrus Facility cannot be used for travel for conferences. I do hope that funding for PlantGENE continues in the future.

The workshops have been valuable. I usually forward invitations to several new transformation scientists, and they’ve always come back with great reviews and feedback on how it has helped them develop an overall understanding of plant transformation and also specific techniques.

I've found PLANTGENE to be an excellent resource for informative webinars and talks as well as a way to find potential collaborators and stay informed on the latest research outside of attending physical conferences. It has helped me keep up-to-date on new ideas and innovations that I would otherwise not have access to and form professional contacts with other scientists that I may never have met otherwise.

PlantGENE has helped me in a number of ways, but probably the most impactful was the Africa-focused webinar "Successes, Challenges, and Opportunities of Plant Transformation Research in Africa", from September 2023. The webinar gave African scientists an opportunity to be heard and has since created further opportunities, including publications about the needs of African scientists, greater presence of African scientists at conferences like the Plant and Animal Genome Conference and Society for in Vitro Biology, and at least more focus (if not yet more funding) for creativity and resourcing of African scientists. Genome editing was supposed to be a democratized technology available for all, and PlantGENE is helping us deliver on this promise. And in general, PlantGENE is the closest thing we have to a true "Research Community of Practice" for plant transformation. Let's build it bigger and better with benefits to all who participate.

I only have best things to say about the PlantGENE group. Information presented in workshops from world-renowned scientists equals presentations in scientific meetings. Other activities organized by PlantGENE are promoting spirit of collaboration amongst researchers. For me, most importantly, this organization is bringing into focus plants as potential factories of specialty products. Genetically modified plants have great potential to be used in the future as more then the source of food. Thank you and everybody else who participated in establishment and organization of PlantGENE activities for your effort!

I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate and use the resources provided on your site! I have worked in plant science for many years but am relatively new to tissue culture and plant transformation. Your resources have been very valuable. I have found the masterclasses and workshops very helpful. Stan Gelvin’s seminar on Agrobacterium was wonderful – it was so helpful to get that basic information as it relates to my work all in one place. I was able to download the slides and re-watch it and take notes that were relevant to my needs. I am also very grateful to the scientists who provide links to videos of them performing techniques! I have searched, unsuccessfully, for this kind of thing many times as I have started working in plant tissue culture and it is so valuable! Finally, as a relatively new-comer to this field, I am also appreciative to attend the sessions and see who else is involved in this kind of work. Thank you again for all the effort that is being put into this site. It is so appreciated!

This entire initiative has been fantastic. I like that they've pooled many important professional elements of the plant biotechnology/biology community such as their integration with SIVB. I attend every single one of their webinars because I always learn something useful that I cannot find at my academic institution/publications/anywhere else.