At 3:45 p.m. Monday, April 11, David Songstad, director of cell biology at Cibus, a San Diego-based biotechnology company known as a leader in precision gene editing for agriculture, will present the Department of Plant Sciences Seminar “Genome Editing: Beyond GMOs.” The seminar will take place in Room 160 of the Plant Biotech Building on the Institute of Agriculture campus.
Songstad is appearing as the first recipient of the department’s Distinguished Alumni Speaker Award. Bob Conger, professor emeritus from the department, will introduce him. Songstad received his Ph.D. in biotechnology from the Department of Plant Sciences in 1986. Among his many accomplishments, Songstad is a past president of the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology and the Society for In Vitro Biology.