Peru has held its first National Biotech Conference organized by the relatively young Peruvian Association for the Development of Biotechnology, PeruBiotec. The meeting, held last May in Lima, was supported by the Peruvian National Council of Science, Technology and Innovation (Concytec), the Ricardo Palma University, and several academic, corporate and public sector groups from Peru and abroad, including the US Department of Agriculture and AgroBio Colombia. Alexander Grobman, president and founding member of PeruBiotec, points out that their overall aim is to stimulate biotech research by sharing local developments, and to benefit from other countries' experience in fields ranging from genetically modified organisms to genomics and biosafety. PeruBiotec, a nonprofit organization, is also intent on tackling controversial issues, by setting up a public forum to discuss and provide information on biotech advances and their relevance to the country. Conference highlights included reports from Peruvian researchers in fish genomics, embryo cultures, alpaca cloning, the development of transgenic papaya resistant to ringspot virus and the first steps towards national biosafety regulation. The event also provided an opportunity for Peru's Concytec to announce that biotech will become a central issue in their national science and technology agenda, with an expected increase in public and private investment.