[For further information on the Electronic Forum on Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture see Forum website.
Note, participants are assumed to be speaking on their own behalf, unless they state otherwise.]

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod1
Sent: 03 June 2005 17:47
To: 'biotech-room1@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: Opening of FAO e-mail conference on biotechnology and genetic resources

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the FAO e-mail conference entitled "The role of biotechnology for the characterisation and conservation of crop, forest, animal and fishery genetic resources in developing countries" !!!!

You can send messages now (send them to biotech-room1@mailserv.fao.org). Messages will be posted from Monday 6 June onwards while the last day for receiving messages for posting will be Sunday 3 July.

We hope that the conference will be interesting, constructive and beneficial and we encourage you to participate actively. We would like to briefly remind you of some of the main points about the running of the conference:

i) Participants should introduce themselves briefly in their first posting to the conference. They should also provide their full address at the end of the message (when posted, we will replace @ with (at) because of spamming).

ii) Messages should not exceed 600 words

iii) People posting messages are assumed to be speaking on their own behalf and not on behalf of their employers (unless they indicate otherwise)

iv) The Background Document to the conference, sent by e-mail to the Forum members on 27 May, sets the scene for the conference and so we strongly encourage you to read it, especially Section 5 which describes some of the potential factors that should be considered and provides a selection of the kinds of specific questions that participants might wish to address in the e-mail conference. The document is available at http://www.fao.org/biotech/C13doc.htm and can also be retrieved by Forum members sending an e-mail to mailserv@mailserv.fao.org, leaving the subject blank and entering the one-line text message:
send listlog/biotech-l.may2005

v) Messages posted in the conference will later (usually within a day or two) be placed on the Forum website - at http://www.fao.org/biotech/logs/c13logs.htm

vi) No messages will be posted with attachments. If you receive a message during the conference with an e-mail attachment, just delete it without opening the attachment.

vii) The conference covers the crop, forestry, livestock and fishery sectors and brings together people who may have knowledge/experience from one or more but not all of these sectors. As terminology is occasionally sector-specific, we ask participants to try and give a brief explanation of any sector-specific terms when they are first used.

viii) As for all other conferences hosted by this Forum, when it is finished a document will be prepared to provide a summary of the main arguments and concerns discussed during the e-mail conference, based on the messages posted by the participants. The summary document will be put on the Forum website and disseminated as widely as possible.

Finally, we encourage you to tell any potentially interested colleagues or contacts about this conference. A short notice is included below for this purpose.

With our sincere best wishes for a successful conference,

John

John Ruane, PhD
Moderator, Conference 13
e-mail: mailto:biotech-mod1@fao.org
FAO website http://www.fao.org
Forum website http://www.fao.org/biotech/forum.asp
FAO Biotechnology website http://www.fao.org/biotech/index.asp

FAO e-mail conference - Biotechnology and characterisation/conservation of genetic resources

The FAO Biotechnology Forum is devoting its next e-mail conference to the role that biotechnology (with tools such as molecular markers or cryopreservation and reproductive technologies) can play in the characterisation and conservation of crop, animal, forest and fishery genetic resources in developing countries. To discuss and exchange experiences on this theme, we invite you to join the conference. This will be the 13th conference hosted by the Forum since it was launched in 2000. The conference, as usual, is open to everyone, is free and will be moderated. It begins on 6 June and runs for four weeks, finishing on 3 July 2005. All e-mail messages posted during the conference will also be placed on the Forum website (http://www.fao.org/biotech/forum.asp). A 16-page background document to the conference has been prepared and is available from the same website. To join the Forum (and also register for the conference), send an e-mail to mailserv@mailserv.fao.org leaving the subject blank and entering the following text on two lines:
subscribe BIOTECH-L
subscribe biotech-room1

Those who are already Forum members should leave out the first line of the above message, to register for the conference. For more information, contact biotech-mod1@fao.org.