Planned as a comprehensive national meeting in nutritional biotechnology, the conference will feature research presentations by prominent researchers from leading research universities, federal agencies and industry. Topics to be discussed will include the development of nutritionally improved crops, bioactives in agriculture, new ways of studying nutrient-gene interactions, the use of metabolomics and nutrigenomics as clinical tools, and how bioinformatics can facilitate new discoveries. (A list of sessions and speakers is attached.) Approximately 300 researchers in the field are expected to attend.

The conference is being held to celebrate the development of the North Carolina Research Campus which is planned as a world center for nutrition-related biotechnology research. The NCRC is the states second major research park development -- a 350-acre biotech hub currently under construction in Kannapolis, North Carolina, a former center for the textile industry, just north of Charlotte. A cooperative venture between six North Carolina research universities and biotech industry, the "biopolis" is the brainchild of David H. Murdock, owner of Castle & Cooke, Inc. and Dole Food Company, Inc. The conference will include a tour of the NCRC site.