In the 2022/2023 financial year, two MINT-EC camps on the topic of "Innovative Plants" were held at XLAB Göttingen with a total of 20 students in years 11-13 from various MINT-EC schools across Germany. The courses, which aimed to give the students an insight into modern breeding methods, were led by molecular biologist and XLAB lecturer Dr. Maram Bader. Climate change poses major challenges for plant breeding, especially when breeding goals such as food security and sustainability are taken into account. Genome editing, for example, plays an important role here as a modern and promising breeding method for crops, as it could be used to create new plant varieties more quickly than conventional methods.
KWS complemented and expanded the perspective of university research with online presentations on the history and future of plant breeding and highlighted training and career opportunities. The potential applications of the techniques learnt at the camp in research and industry were demonstrated.
"We want to give young people a perspective on how they can use their knowledge and act locally to jointly master global challenges such as food security. Science and business must work closely together, otherwise we are not convincing. The cooperation between KWS and XLAB at the Science Camps is an excellent example of this: the participating pupils in their career and study search phase are very attentive and grateful for the insight into the basics that we provide them with and the applied research in the company."
Prof. Dr Thomas Waitz, Scientific Director XLAB