This moderated discussion featured a panel of UC Berkeley experts will pore over the myriad ways modern civilization interacts with fungi. The panel will speak to our millennia-long appetite for them in cuisines throughout the world, as well as their evolving presence in commerce, medicine (including the use of psilocybin in modern mental health treatments), public health (including indoor air quality and the spread of opportunistic disease), as well as the impact climate change is having on the mushroom season.

How do we feed a growing population and engineer crops that are resilient to climate change? How do we increase crop yields and fight crop diseases and pests while preserving our soils and water sources? The rapid advance of gene editing and other technologies has provided a new tool kit to address these questions and more, and they have already made an impact at a global scale, just at the moment when global-scale solutions are needed most. Brian Staskawicz (UC Berkeley) and Pam Ronald (UC Davis) discuss the latest advances in using genome editing and other genetic technologies to promote sustainable agriculture at scale, both promises and potential pitfalls, and how we move from lab to field safely and equitably.