Day 1: November 3, 2025

09:00 – 10:00: Registration

10:00 – 11:00: Opening Ceremony: Welcome remarks

• Prof. Dr. Naglaa Abdallah and Dr. Helmy Youssef (Coordinators)
• Prof. Dr. Ayman Amin (Dean of the Faculty)
• Ms. Fatma Soliman (DAAD Regional Office Cairo)
• Dr. Hannah Maria Brandt (Head of Science and Protocol of the German Embassy in Cairo, Egypt)
• Prof. Dr. Mohamed Sami Abdel Sadek (President of Cairo University)
• Prof. Dr. Ayman Ashour (Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research)

11:00 – 11:15: Plenary: International collaborations: steps towards Nobel Prize

Prof. Dr. Mats Hansson (Lund University)

11:15 – 11:30: Group photo

11:30 – 12:00: COFFEE BREAK ☕

12:00 – 12:45: DAAD programs and funding

Ms. Heba Ahmed

12:45 – 13:45: Session I: New techniques in Plant Biotechnology

Moderator: Prof. Dr. Göetz Hensel, Prof. Dr. Abdelhady Abdallah

12:45 – 13:15: Innovation in agricultural biotechnology to increase agricultural productivity and quality

Prof. Dr. Naglaa Abdallah

13:15 – 13:45: Discovery and molecular characterization of novel Loci/genes controlling salinity tolerance at seedling, vegetative, and reproductive stages in highly diverse barley collections

Dr. Helmy M. Youssef

13:45 – 15:00: LUNCH 🍽️

15:00 – 16:30: Session II: Genetic aspects of abiotic and biotic Stress Tolerance

Moderator: Prof. Dr. Mats Hansson, Ass. Prof. Dr. Rasha Altarawneh

15:00 – 15:30: Recent advances in developing salt-tolerant crop varieties: Progress in the genus Salicornia

Prof. Dr. Jutta Papenbrock

15:30 – 16:00: The molecular mechanisms of ‘touch’ signalling in plants and their potential for improving cereal resilience

Dr. Olivier van Aken

16:00 – 16:30: Genomic insights into threonine aldolase metabolism during grain filling under drought stress

Prof. Dr. Heba Ebeed

16:30 – 17:30: Poster Session 🖼️

Day 2: November 4, 2025

09:00 – 11:30: Session III: Plant Biotechnology Applications

Moderator: Prof. Dr. Ebtissam Hussein, Dr. Olivier van Aken

09:00 – 09:30: Precision Mutagenesis in Crops for Functional Genomics and Agronomic Trait Enhancement

Prof. Dr. Göetz Hensel

09:30 – 10:00: Exploring a historic barley mutant collection for gene identification

Prof. Dr. Mats Hansson

10:00 – 10:30: Developing Drought Tolerant Chickpea Using Gene Editing for mutating Sal1 and Era1 genes

Prof. Dr. Naglaa Abdallah

10:00 – 11:00: Utilizing Modern Techniques to Dissect Factors Negatively Affecting the Yield of the Sesame Crop

Dr. Mohamed Tawfik

11:00 – 11:30: COFFEE BREAK ☕

11:30 – 13:30: Session IV: Plant phenomics and breeding

Moderator: Prof. Dr. Reda Elwany, Prof. Dr. Jutta Papenbrock

11:30 – 12:00: Genomic durum wheat breeding at ICARDA: boosting genetic gain for drylands farming

Dr. Fillippo Bassi

12:00 – 12:30: Identification of Candidate Genes Enhancing Seawater Tolerance in Spring Wheat at Early Growth Stages

Prof. Dr. Ahmed Sallam

12:30 – 13:00: QTL Mapping for Drought Stress Tolerance in Wheat Primed with Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles

Dr. Mennatalla Mahmoud

13:00 – 13:50: Why Gene Bank and why cryopreservation?

Dr. Hossam El Maksoud

13:30 – 15:30: LUNCH 🍽️

13:30 – 16:30: Session V: Plant OMICS

Moderator: Prof. Dr. Ebtissam Hussein

13:30 – 14:00: UNVEILING THE MECHANISM OF THE Sr62 WHEAT TANDEM KINASE

Dr. Renjie Chen

14:00 – 14:30: Wild alleles enhance salt tolerance during barley germination and seedling growth in HEB-400 population

Dr. Rasha Altarawneh

14:30 – 15:00: Genome-wide association analysis reveals novel loci and resistant genotypes for stripe rust in ICARDA’s spring bread wheat across the WANA region

Alaa Youssef Salah

15:00 – 16:00: Poster Session 🖼️

20:00 – 22:00: Joint Networking Dinner 🍽️ 🤝

Day 3: November 5, 2025

09:00 – 10:30: Session VI: Innovative approaches, best practices, and policy development and enhancing public awareness

Moderator: Prof. Dr. Naglaa Abdallah

09:00 – 09:30: Commercial release of gene edited and genetically modified crops

Prof. Olalekan Akinbo

09:30 – 10:00: Legal Framework for biosafety

Dr. Luay Elsayed Zonkle

10:00 – 11:30: Session VII: Plant microbiome

Moderator: Prof. Dr. Reda Elwany

10:00 – 10:30: Plant microbiome technology for sustainable agriculture

Prof. Dr. Aladdin Hamawaia

10:30 – 11:30: Metagenomic analysis of drought-induced changes in the rhizosphere microbiome of Egyptian wheat

Dr. KH Radwan

11:30 – 12:00: Characterizing Wheat Rhizosphere Bacterial Microbiome Dynamics Under Salinity Stress: Insights from 16S rRNA Metagenomics for Enhancing Stress Tolerance

Nourhan Fouad

12:00 – 13:00: COFFEE BREAK ☕

13:00 – 14:30: Closing Remarks & Way forward and Next Steps

14:30 – 15:00: Announcement of the best posters 🏅