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EI Innovate: A platform for collaboration and new ideas

After last year’s inaugural success, EI Innovate is back with a three day event to explore how academic research can be translated and shared to establish new collaborations and innovative solutions to global challenges.

12 August 2020

After last year’s inaugural success, EI Innovate is back with a three day event to explore how academic research can be translated and shared to establish new collaborations and innovative solutions to global challenges.

We asked our Head of Business Development and Impact, Dr Liliya Serazetdinova, what to look out for at this year’s virtual event - EI Innovate: From Identification to Intervention - for which registrations are open.

 

What is EI Innovate?

EI Innovate is an annual event that brings together EI scientists with collaborators, technology suppliers, and the potential end users of our research.

We believe it’s important to share our knowledge and what we can do, especially as our research is supported by public funds. We therefore strive to make our work accessible to as many researchers and practitioners in biosciences and agri-food communities as possible.

EI Innovate is a fantastic way to catalyse that engagement, and additionally provides an excellent networking platform for attendees.

 

What can we expect from the event?

You can expect three great days of learning about EI’s cutting-edge technologies and research, our existing projects and collaborations, and how our expertise and facilities can be accessed through collaborative projects, training, or contract research for real-life applications.

Attendees can also expect to take part in discussions about the specific challenges and opportunities presented in our field, and will be given ample opportunity to explore new potential collaborations.

 

Dr Liliya Serazetdinova, EI's Head of Business Development and Impact speaking to us at EI Innovate 2019

What are the main topics of conversation this year?

We have three main themes this year.

  1. Disease identification and monitoring – how genomics and bioinformatics are used for disease identification and monitoring, from COVID-19 and antimicrobial resistance to agricultural pathogens.
  2. Finding a needle in a haystack – identifying specific targets in health and disease with long-read RNA and single cell sequencing.
  3. Accelerating plant breeding with next generation genetics, genomics and epigenetics.

Who are you most excited to hear from this year?

I can’t wait to hear from all of our invited speakers, but also from those who will submit ideas for lightning pitches and topics for discussions.

This is a great opportunity for us to find out about ways that we can work with you - so we can’t wait to hear from you.

What are some of our speakers looking forward to?

 

Dr Elizabeth Tunbridge, Associate Professor, University of Oxford

“I’m excited to hear more about the cutting-edge technical approaches that EI employs, since these may be relevant to advancing our understanding of the molecular basis of human brain function.”

Dr Rose Davidson, Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia

“The recent month demonstrated the vital importance of robust platforms for disease detection and diagnostics for covid-19, and I am looking forward to learn more about EI’s capabilities in genomics and automation that can help to make advances in these platforms”

Dr Wilfried Haerty, Earlham Institute

“I look forward to attending EI innovate for the opportunity to discuss the exciting science conducted by EI researchers and their collaborators, and to develop new projects. An exciting collaboration of my own has been with Dr Elizabeth Tunbridge at the University of Oxford, who I’m delighted will also be speaking at the event. Our joint work on calcium channels has allowed us to rethink how we look at genes and transcripts diversity and what this means for tissue development, and it’s exactly these sorts of collaborations EI Innovate can establish and help prosper.”