Addressing global challenges in agricultural and environmental sustainability, such as climate change and population growth, requires innovative approaches to engineering plant and microbial systems. Advancements in tools and technologies are presenting new opportunities to ensure agricultural productivity and resilience. 

This Keystone Symposia conference on Plant and Microbe Engineering for Sustainability will examine the engineering of plant and microbial systems for improved stress tolerance, nutrient use, and carbon sequestration. Sessions will highlight cutting-edge advances in gene editing, synthetic biology, computational modeling, and AI and explore how they can be applied to plant, microbial, and plant-microbiome systems to promote sustainable agriculture. Attendees will gain insights into how plant and microbe engineering can address urgent agricultural and environmental challenges.

By bringing together plant biologists, microbiologists, bioengineers, and computational biologists, this meeting will foster collaborations that guide future research efforts toward transformative agricultural solutions—from smallholder farms to industrial-scale operations. To further promote interactions across disciplines, this meeting is co-located with the Keystone Symposia conference on Receptor Kinase Signaling: Fueling Plant Resilience and Development. The goal-orientated and interdisciplinary design of this meeting distinguishes it as a leading forum for sustainability-focused research.