The event, that took place on October 13-14, featured two series of events: seminar activities featuring various speakers from within and outside the country, as well as parallel presentation sessions for participants who had previously submitted abstracts of their research findings.

This seminar was attended by many experts with academic, industrial, and regulatory backgrounds, including Prof. Dr. Robert Manurung (School of Life Science and Technology, ITB), Dr. Ir. Fadjry Djuffry, M.Si. (Post Harvest Research and Development Center), Prof. Gil Garnier (Monash University, Australia), Prof. Dr. Ir. Hero Jan Heeres (University of Groningen, Netherlands), Prof. Hak Lae Lee (Seoul National University, South Korea), Prof. Wilhelm Gruissem (ETH Zurich, Switzerland), Ir. Budi Gunadi Sadikin, CHFC, CLU (Minister of Health of the Republic of Indonesia), Adriansjah Azhari, M.M. (Biofarma), Dr. apt. Elfahmi (School of Pharmacy, ITB), Prof. Yoshiharu Matsuura (Osaka University, Japan), Dr. Ernawati Giri Rahman (School of Life Science and Technology, ITB), Dr. Husna Nugrahapraja (School of Life Science and Technology, ITB), Prof. Dr. Azura Amid (International Islamic University, Malaysia), and Prof. Chin Kun Wang (Chung Sang Medical University, Taiwan).

The seminars covered a wide range of topic, including the valorization of Indonesia's biological resources, the development of biomass into fuel, the improvement of rice and cassava nutrition for health and industry, the opportunities and challenges in developing a COVID-19 vaccine, and the discussion about natural ingredients for producing nutraceutical products. Beside seminar, this event included a parallel presentation session. Participants from Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, the United States, and England presented 99 abstracts and full research papers during the discussion session.

Moreover, there was also a poster competition of pre-events series that high school and university students could participate in. Based on the judges' evaluations, three participants won this poster competition: Riyan Dwi Julianto (ITB) received first place, Irtyafari Almira Haswara (ITB) received second place, and Fathiya Khairiya (ITB) received third place. Other than the three winners, Widya Agustinah et al. (Atma Jaya University), Tet Soon Wong et al. (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia), and Allegra Phelia Amadea Manurung et al. (ITB) received best presenter awards.

Although this year's conference activities had to be held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event still aimed to provide the participants an excellent learning experience regarding the latest developments in bioscience and biorefinery that is being carried out by various institutions both within and outside the country. To foster a superior scientific culture that has been eagerly awaited by the academic community, this event is expected to take place offline the following year, after the COVID-19 pandemic has passed.

Source: SITH ITB
Translator: Naffisa Adyan Fekranie (Oceanography, 2019)