APPLIED BIOCHEMISTRY AND BIOTECHNOLOGY

Industry, and 22% were from government. A total of oral presentations (including Special Topic presentations) and 329 poster presentations were delivered. The high number of poster submissions required splitting the poster session into two evening sessions. (Conference details are posted at http://www.eere.energy.gov/biomass/biotech_symposium/.) Almost 35% of the attendees were international, showing the strong and building worldwide interest in this area. Nations represented included Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Central African Republic, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Gambia, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, United Ki- dom, and Venezuela, as well as the United States. One of the focus areas for bioconversion of renewable resources into fuels is conversion of lignocellulose into sugars and the conversion of s- ars into fuels and other products. This focus is continuing to expand toward the more encompassing concept of the integrated multiproduct biorefinery--where the production of multiple fuel, chemical, and energy products occurs at one site using a combination of biochemical and ther- chemical conversion technologies. The biorefinery concept continues to grow as a unifying framework and vision, and the biorefinery theme f- tured prominently in many talks and presentations. However, another emerging theme was the importance of examining and optimizing the entire biorefining process rather than just its bioconversion-related elements.