Track 4 Session Details
AFCC Conference Breakout Sessions
Breakout Sessions are 90 minutes, each one has one moderator with a maximum of four to five speakers.
Breakout sessions will be focused on the following five subject areas:
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Track 2: Sustainable Feedstocks and Biofuels, Driving Decarbonization
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Track 4: Synthetic Biology, Alternative Proteins, Regenerative Agriculture, Food & Fiber
Track 4 Breakout Session Details​
Synthetic Biology, Alternative Proteins, Regenerative Agriculture, Food & Fiber
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This Track is Sponsored by:
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Monday, November 17, 2025
Session 1: 8:00 AM TO 9:30 AM: Purpose-Grown Energy Crops: A Strategic Feedstock for a Resilient Bioeconomy
Moderator: Mark P. Elless, Technology Manager, Renewable Carbon Resources, Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO)
Speakers:
The bio-based fuels and chemicals sector has historically relied on waste and residual biomass, such as forestry byproducts, agricultural residues, and used cooking oil, for feedstock supply. While these feedstocks have played a crucial role in the industry’s development, they are inherently limited by regional availability, supply chain volatility, and rising cross-sector competition. Purpose-grown energy crops offer a scalable, predictable, and increasingly cost-effective complement to these conventional sources. Recent advances in plant breeding, biotechnology, and land management now enable purpose-grown crops to be cultivated on marginal or underutilized land, with high yields and minimal inputs. These crops can deliver consistent biomass yields, enhance soil health, and support decarbonization goals when paired with conversion technologies such as pyrolysis, fermentation, or gasification. In some cases, improved crop genetics have also been shown to increase carbon uptake and tailor feedstock properties to downstream processing needs. Purpose-grown energy crops intersect three urgent themes: ensuring reliable biomass supply in a tightening low-carbon fuels market, promoting responsible land use and rural economic development, and leveraging plant science innovation for industrial applications. For Program Committee Members, this panel offers a perspective on how purpose-grown energy crops can strengthen the resilience, sustainability, and competitiveness of the emerging bioeconomy.
Andy Miller, CEO, Loamist
Purpose-Grown Energy Crops: A Strategic Feedstock for a Resilient Bioeconomy
The bio-based fuels and chemicals sector has historically relied on waste and residual biomass, such as forestry byproducts, agricultural residues, and used cooking oil, for feedstock supply. While these feedstocks have played a crucial role in the industry’s development, they are inherently limited by regional availability, supply chain volatility, and rising cross-sector competition. Purpose-grown energy crops offer a scalable, predictable, and increasingly cost-effective complement to these conventional sources. Recent advances in plant breeding, biotechnology, and land management now enable purpose-grown crops to be cultivated on marginal or underutilized land, with high yields and minimal inputs. These crops can deliver consistent biomass yields, enhance soil health, and support decarbonization goals when paired with conversion technologies such as pyrolysis, fermentation, or gasification. In some cases, improved crop genetics have also been shown to increase carbon uptake and tailor feedstock properties to downstream processing needs. Purpose-grown energy crops intersect three urgent themes: ensuring reliable biomass supply in a tightening low-carbon fuels market, promoting responsible land use and rural economic development, and leveraging plant science innovation for industrial applications. This panel offers a perspective on how purpose-grown energy crops can strengthen the resilience, sustainability, and competitiveness of the emerging bioeconomy.
Session 2: 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM: How Alternative Proteins and Food Biomanufacturing Drive Regional Innovation
Moderator: Curt Chaffin, Senior Fellow, Good Food Institute
Speakers:
Program Lead for Infrastructure
Illinois Fermentation and Agriculture Biomanufacturing (iFAB)
​While many industrial biotech industries remain concentrated around major coastal cities, food biomanufacturing possesses unique potential to benefit a broad range of communities, especially within the American heartland. Recent research indicates that the burgeoning alternative protein sector, particularly precision fermentation and cellular agriculture, can revitalize rural economies while simultaneously advancing climate-smart agriculture, clean water, and soil health. Recent scholarship by Rees-Clayton and Chaffin demonstrates that food biomanufacturing acts as a driver of regional innovation due to its strong ties to local crop biomass resources, infrastructure, agricultural research, and workforce availability; this model has supported rural economic growth from North Carolina to Central Illinois to Northern California (Publication Forthcoming). Protein diversification further expands economic opportunities for farmers and producers. Eastham et al. identified dozens of commodity crops that can be valorized into protein concentrates, protein hydrolysates, and lignocellulosic sugars—adding value to current production and supporting circularity (“Cultivating alternative proteins from commodity crop sidestreams,” 2024). Broadening the portfolio of inputs for food biomanufacturing, including precision fermentation, would enhance soil health, improve water availability, and decrease emissions (“Environmental benefits of alternative proteins, 2024”). This presentation will identify real-world examples to argue that alternative proteins and biomanufacturing represent a powerful tool for rural economic diversification, highlighting the groundbreaking work of AFCC members.
Session 3: 1:30 PM TO 3:00 PM: Advanced Biomanufacturing for Industrial Efficiency
Moderator: Sarah Glaven, Principle, Marathon Bio
Speakers:
Biomanufacturing can be used to produce molecules that form the chemical building blocks of everyday consumer products, including medicines, fuels, fabrics/materials and more, but the cost is high relative to petroleum-based molecules. This has left the biomanufacturing sector struggling to justify continued investment in chemicals production, and developers have turned to the claim that advanced biomanufacturing will usher in an age of chemical production that is more efficient than conventional chemicals manufacturing, despite scant evidence. In cases where evidence does exist, such as for polyethylene, the efficiency benefit is related to the fact that input carbon is derived from plants already available aboveground, versus removal of additional fossil-derived carbon from belowground. Leap-ahead advances in availability of input material (i.e. feedstock), process design (e.g. bioreactors), and biological design (e.g. synthetic biology) will further enhance overall process efficiency for chemicals biomanufacturing while bringing down cost. For technological advances to be fully realized, developers, customers of biomanufactured chemicals, and policymakers must work together to identify incentives to scale-up and grow chemicals biomanufacturing. This session will bring together leaders from startup companies and established businesses to discuss opportunities to fully realize biomanufacturing as an industry of future and the technological advancements that will lead to this result.
Session 4: 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM: Future Advances and Opportunities for Biogas
Moderator: Doug Cameron, President, Alberti Advisors
Speakers:
Russ Conser
Co-Founder
Permanent Farming, Inc.
Luca Zullo
Sr. Director of Science and Technology
Agricultural Utilization Research Institute (AURI)
Although anaerobic digestion and the production of biogas has been practiced for centuries, the area is poised for significant scientific, engineering, and commercial development over the next 20 years. Biogas is a mixture of mostly methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The methane is commonly referred to as renewable natural gas (RNG). Recently, several major energy companies have made significant investments into biogas production, and RNG demand in the US is expected to grow 10-fold by 2040. Biogas can be produced from a wide range of biomass and waste feedstocks, including agricultural wastes and municipal solid waste (MSW). The methane can be burned for energy production, converted to synthesis gas (syngas), or used directly as a chemical or fermentation feedstock. Syngas is a highly versatile feedstock for fuels and chemicals and is also a fermentation feedstock, either directly or via the conversion to methanol. The carbon dioxide from biogas is also a useful and increasingly valuable chemical feedstock. This panel will take a broad look at future advances and opportunities related to biogas. Topics will include RNG economics and financial incentives, plant design and construction, enhanced and new feedstocks (including pretreatments, enzymes, and energy crops), microbial strain and inoculum improvement (including uses of synthetic biology), the impact of AI on process development and operation, and new applications of biogas.
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
Session 5: 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM: Innovative Consumer Products from Synthetic Biology Tools
Moderator: David Dodds, CTO, SynAppBio, Inc.
Speakers:
​The production of food from inedible materials via a biological process has been a concept for decades if not longer. The production of single cell protein (called Pruteen at the time) as a food, produced from methanol by ICI at Teeside in the early 1970s has stood as an example of technology well before its time. Alternate nutritive food stuffs, mostly protein but also fats and oils, as well as the dietary articles of pre- and probiotics, are now being explored and introduced fairly frequently. The use of biological processes, generally be selecting and enriching for relevant consortia of micro-organisms, for the purpose of enhancing plant growth, or enriching or rehabilitating agricultural soils is another aspect of synthetic biology for the general purpose of food production, while also potentially sequestering carbon in the soil. Redesigning metabolic pathways for these purposes, as well as for producing new fibers and polymers, and new routes to edible protein, nutritional compounds, and agricultural enhancement, is now practical, and is ready for commercialization. Join this panel of thought leaders in a wide variety of applications of synthetic biology.
Session 6: 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM: Federal Government Research, Policies, and Investments to Build the Domestic Bioeconomy
Moderator: Gregory Jaffe, President, Jaffe Policy Consulting LLC
Speakers:
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Building the domestic bioeconomy is critical to many of our country’s priorities, including building domestic manufacturing, creating good paying jobs, supporting rural development, increasing farmer income, and building supply chain resilience. The federal government has and will continue to support the domestic bioeconomy through research, policies, and investments. In this panel, representatives from the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, and BioMADE (which is a Bioindustrial Manufacturing Innovation Institute funded by the Department of Defense) will discuss the various ways that the federal government currently is supporting our domestic bioeconomy, its recent successes, and what is anticipated in the coming months. These experts will provide their perspective on how the United States can utilize existing biomass, scientific and technical expertise, and the private sector to ensure that we use biotechnology and biomanufacturing to bring biobased products to the marketplace for consumers.
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Peter Jackman, Director, Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein
Lessons From U.S. Patent Office Litigation Involving Biomass-Related Patents
Modern agriculture is being transformed by a confluence of advancing technologies. Agricultural biology, cell biology, genome and proteome research, gene sequencing, and gene editing technology like CRISPR are reshaping agriculture to face the challenges of an expanding global population, climate change, and a finite natural resource base. Patents provide the infrastructure to protect innovation and enable technology progress in the area of agriculture, particularly biomass. According to data obtained from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, patenting in agricultural technologies has increased steadily over the past few decades. For many years, the only way to challenge the validity of a patent was through protracted and expensive district court litigation. Post Grant Review and Inter Partes Review were introduced by the America Invents Act in 2012, and designed as an efficient alternative to district court litigation to challenge patent validity. Since their debut, PGRs and IPRs have enjoyed widespread adoption across many industries. Although the total number and frequency of PGR and IPR petitions filed related to the biomass industry are relatively low compared to other industries, it is reasonable to believe that more patents in this sector will be challenged in the future. Patent owners who believe that their patents may be challenged in a PGR or IPR proceeding should consider adjusting their patent prosecution strategies accordingly. This presentation will provide an analysis of recent PGR and IPR filings related to the biomass industry and discuss action steps based on lessons learned from these proceedings to further strengthen patent portfolios.