The feeling of hope in the conference room was palpable as I walked into the crowded conference space earlier this afternoon. Over the past three years, the ABO Algal Biomass Summit has grown in numbers from 300 attendees in 2007 at the inaugural conference in San Francisco to over 700 attendees this year, encompassing a crowd of basic researchers to government officials, entrepreneurs to farmers; all of them interested in hearing the latest breakthroughs in this growing field.

The first session of talks included an introductory keynote talk by Dr. Paul Roessler of Synthetic Genomics, who discussed the recent merger with Exxon Mobil to develop the economic viability of using algae as a feedstock to develop biofuels from the basic research side up to engineering, process development and scaling up of the methods to make it economically viable.

The following session focused on the science and technology of algae biomass production, which consisted of three short talks about algae oil production by Dr. Bill Barclay of Martek Biosciences, Dr. Steve Mayfield of Sapphire Energy and UCSD, and Dr. John Benemann who is one of the pioneers in the field of algal biomass research.

While each of these later talks could be considered research talks, the focus differed from most science conferences in that the focus on the future and the hope inherent in algae technologies were the primary messages each speaker hoped to get across.

Barclay's talk on using algae to produce oils for nutritional uses and their great strides forward in the past 11 years have enabled Martek to go from basic research to applied technologies so that algae-derived oils are actually being used in consumer products like yogurt, milk and nutritional supplements.

Mayfield came across as algae's white knight in his talk about commercial algae biomass production, where he dispelled common misconceptions about the viability of algae as a fuel source, going so far as to urge the attendees to look at the nametags of the people sitting next to them so that anyone involved in government funding might not miss the importance of this field of research. He went on to discuss some of the challenges, as well as the need to "domesticate" algae, just as crops and livestock have been domesticated throughout human history.

Benemann rounded out the afternoon's session with a humor and wit that rippled across the room, carried by the easy laughter and eagerness of the crowd. He highlighted some of the limiting factors that are hampering the advancement of the field, including lack of interest in research crowds (as evidenced by the number of scientific papers published on algae compared to other experimental organisms), to the challenges of using carbon dioxide as a fuel source, land use and photosynthetic efficiency.

After a short break, the conference divided up into a session commemorating the memory of the father of algal research, Dr. Ralph Arnold Lewin, where a number of people who had worked for him talked about his work, his life and his love of algae. The outpouring of emotion and the number of people attending showed just what a small research community this is and how remembering the past can motivate the breakthroughs of tomorrow. The second session focused on some of the infrastructure problems facing the algal biomass industry, ranging from the benefits of using algae in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions as compared to the use of fossil fuels to strategic modeling to identify regions of the United States that are best suited for the highest algae production per year.

The striking feature of all these sessions was their focus on the future and the hurdles this burgeoning industry is facing. That message, coupled with the promise that algae holds as a source of many commodoties (from biofuels to oils for food to harvesting of co-products that can be used in animal feedstocks or food coloring or auqacultures), makes it seem as though this conference is more than just an opportunity for scientists to talk shop, but as a place where minds can change, collaborations on all levels of infrastructure can grow, and this industry can take a big step forward into the future.