Hello everyone good to see you all here and thanks for joining us. Hope it's not too chilly I have to stand up because I can't otherwise I can't see a Christian I'll sit down in a sec If we had been meeting Two three months ago. I think this would be one of those really depressing Davos sessions Because inflation was on a tear Ukraine war was was raging It was it felt as if we were Europe was going into a deep recession The good news is that we're not we're not there I am generally a lot more optimistic Much to Putin's dismay Europe is not likely to suffer more than more than Russia not in the medium term not in the long term and and Not even in the short term gas prices are back to pre-war levels inflation seems to have peaked Although I'm sure we were we will hear a lot more about core inflation in this session The question to me and the one one that I will be also putting to the panel is What are the medium term prospects? Because there are still very big challenges whether it's from pressure from the US on IRA on decoupling from China still have tight labor markets and Energy costs that are not going back to where to where they used to be so I couldn't have hoped for a better panel Christine Lagarde president of the European Central Bank Valdez Dombrovsky's European Trade Commissioner Andrei Blankovich Prime Minister of Croatia Mark Rutte, of course, Prime Minister of the Netherlands and Christian suing CEO of Deutsche Bank Mrs. Lagarde, I'm going to start with you to give us a bit of an overview of your expectations for this year and More specifically, what do you need to see to be more confident that we are on the right trajectory when it comes to Inflation, what are you looking at? Well, first of all, I look first of all good morning to everyone and thank you for being being here but the first thing that we look at is the activity and the activity on a global basis the activity at the euro area level and I agree with you that the news have become much more positive in the last few weeks and You know the rhetoric has moved from Recession in Q3 Q4 and possibly plus to recession in Q4 and Q1 of 23 to now this small contraction and With leaders of some of the major players in Europe actually arguing that there will be no recession I think the case made by Olaf Schultz On Germany a couple of days ago was was explicit We look at that and what we are seeing at the moment is clearly an activity that is declining compared with an excellent 2022 where growth was 3.4 to a growth projections that we have for 23 of 0.5, so it's not a Brilliant year, but it is a lot better than what we had feared so we start with that and then of course our focus is Inflation I'll come to that in a second But I'd like to point out one other factor which we look at which is critically important for our assessment of inflation expectations and inflation evolution and that is the job market and the job market in Europe has Never been as vibrant as it is now the unemployment number is rock bottom compared with what we've had in the last 20 years and The participation rate which matters as well is also at a very very high level and that is pretty much homogeneous Throughout the euro area Now you asked me about inflation and inflation is obviously the prime mission and the primary objective of DCB because our mission is to procure price stability without which growth investment decisions by economic actors Is going to be ampered so on inflation? We have way too high numbers I know that a lot of journalists made a big fuss about the fact that headline numbers had gone down Most recently and you also mentioned yourself that we have to look at core inflation, which is certainly critically important so we look at all the composition of inflation from headline to core to sticky to stripped out all sorts of Elements and inflation by all accounts, however, you look at it is way too high And our determination at the ECB is to bring it back to 2% In a timely manner and taking all the measures that we have to take in order to do that Which is why we have already increased interest rates by 250 basis points And and we shall stay the course until such time when we have moved into restrictive territory for long enough So that we can return inflation to the percent in a timely manner. Do you think it is becoming entrenched? What you need to do for that is What we look what we do is we look very carefully at inflation Expectations because that that's a key driver and we are not seeing inflation expectations De-anchoring in any significant way it it varies a little bit around to we look at surveys We look at market expectations. We try to measure in all shapes and forms, but inflation expectations Are not de-anchoring and what we have to avoid is that they be at risk of de-anchoring When we when we think about gross We hear a lot of Investors worried that there could be that you could tighten the ECB could tighten too much Especially if as expected inflation sort of drops quite precipitously to let's say let's say 4% And that you know, I'm sure everyone here has heard that that was the this magic 4% that everyone think things we're gonna get to Fairly fairly quickly. Does anyone on the panel worry about? Overtightening Christian I see you I'm not worried. I mean Because first of all I have to say that I think the ECB has done Exactly the right thing since the last summer and I can only encourage and I'm appreciating the comments from Christine That she is clearly saying we are staying the course Because I think the worst what can happen is that we bring inflation not under control Inflation is the thing which is a poison for the economy and while I agree to all the comments that there is more Optimism in the economy the underlying problems, which we have in Europe high inflation Also certain other structure reforms are not gone And if we come into the situation that we potentially get inflation a bit down But over time we never get control of it then we come into the spiral that we also from other participants in the economies Like the unions we will get a Different answer because I think they have remained very calm. They have played in my view Together with the corporates and with all the participants a game that we can over time Tame now the inflation. So I think this consequent answer is exactly the right thing Then there was one more worry I have and that is You know if China and this is again one of the reasons why the economy is now looking a bit a bit better But we also need to watch what kind of impact the opening of China has on our inflation And therefore it is so important that we keep the consequent line Christine just laid out and I think that is more important because if we get that under control I'm absolutely convinced that Europe can grow In the medium and long term and that's the most important clearly Inflation has also eased a bit because of Chinese demand because Chinese demand especially for energy was depressed and China is definitely reopening but Commissioner, I just I wanted to get you on Fiscal policy you have warned that fiscal and monetary policy have to go in the same direction Which of course is not the case in in some countries Can governments start reducing their budget deficits and move to a stricter fiscal policy? And is that what you what you really want to see right now? Well indeed if we want to respond to current economic Circumstances which is in any case slowing growth and high inflation We need to have consistent macroeconomic policy mix. So there needs to be indeed consistency between monitor policy and fiscal policies. They cannot work at cross purposes that's why Our recommendation as European Commission's recommendation for this year is to have a broadly natural fiscal stance in the euro area and Where we see possibilities to bring down a budget deficit is related to How well the support measures for Energy for households and businesses are targeted Because around 70% of the support measures are not targeted. So it's amounts to Substantial fiscal stimulus, but it's actually feeds into inflation. It does not Send the price signal does not help reduce energy demand and thus Does not help also to reduce energy Prices so you want the second phase of the support to be a lot more targeted to work Yes, and we have concretely also came with a concrete model Which we propose to member states so called to tear pricing systems that up to certain consumption level consumers receive subsidized price and about this consumption level paying the market price. So basically having this intention also to reduce on the Consumption side. So that is one thing that we need consistent policy mix another of course We need to do also targeted measures to get energy prices down Because that That issue will remain with us. We We are having elevated Energy crisis are forecast as well fossil fuel for ISIS will stay elevated for a for a single time We had seen lots of volatility. So On one hand, we have done lots of also market intervention measures to deal with those specific issues On another hand, we are accelerating our green transition So moving faster towards renewables Towards energy efficiency measures, but that of course means that we need to sustain also this investment for those purposes and that's where our recovery and resilience facility comes in and this year should be the Peak year for disbursements of recovery and resilience facilities. That's where our repower EU plants come in But what I also wanted to emphasize on the energy side We also need to continue to deal with energy security of supply issues because Yes, this winter we have plenty of gas in the storage so we can be confident will go through the winter But this winter we still have lots of Russian gas in our storage This was pumped in the first half of the last year and this is not going to be the case next winter So we'll still how to seek yet? substantial additional gas supplies from other Providers also for the next Winter and that's in a context as you mentioned where China's economy is opening up and also maybe seeking more gas Supplies so there are still challenges ahead of us A Prime Minister I see you nodding. Is it are you worried about storage because you could get a combination of a you know storage facilities that are not full Harsher winter because even though the weather here has been miserable actually we've had a mild we're having a mild winter and China demand coming back I'm not overly worried But we have to stay concentrated on this issue and it has to do with Refill the storage capacity. We also need to make sure that we we are doubling in my country the LNG Imports Germany is massively building these floating LNG terminals And at the same time, of course, we have to work on the energy transition for the longer term No, my worry is more on the previous subject and that is inflation in combination with low longer-term growth Prospects for Europe and I strongly believe you have to do a few things at the same time We have to bring down government borrowing It's still too high in Italy and France and other countries or in our big economies And that is really hampering long-term growth and in the short term We had to spend hundreds of billions as you are also in Netherlands to support household incomes low income On lower incomes the middle incomes logically. Otherwise, you would have big issues with people not being able to Pay for the energy prices and energy bills, but longer term. This is not sustainable So they happen to become more targeted and for the shorter term somehow we need to offset those extra spending With savings where we can find them or extra economic growth opportunities Because otherwise it could fuel inflation in itself So for the longer term for me, it means bringing down government borrowing It's crucial in all of the European Union, but particularly in some of the big economies Whilst at the same time, and this is particularly difficult Put in place the necessary structural reforms particularly in the pension sectors When you look at Italy and France and some other countries they are spending 10 to 15 percent of GDP on pensions And and that money is gone. I mean it's fantastic, of course that you can do that But in the Netherlands we are spending 5 percent on pensions So that gives you a 10 percent extra space to invest in in education In innovation or just to lower taxation and longer term that is not sustainable now I'm happy that the French have now decided to to move on the pension issue My sister was just retiring at age 68 in France I can retire at age 64 by 2030, but at least that step is now being taken and still you will see that society in France Yeah, now storm the alley jade to it because they do not agree Let's not be happy about it. It might be a bit too early to be congratulating the French No, exactly, but we also need to message I believe collectively that this is crucial Because we do not want Europe to become a sort of museum where you go to because of the beautiful cities It has to be the place of growth, of innovation, of industry-based and Government borrowing under control, structural reforms in place is to risk recipe for this And I'm extremely happy with this commissioner because this is exactly the recipe is following Lots to come back to Prime Minister Plenkovich. Well, congratulations. You are You've just passed a huge milestone. You've joined the Euro How's that going for you? The feeling is very good. I have to admit it was an exercise of a six years long and very well accompanied reforms Internally and also with the whole dialogue that we had with the Commission with the ECB With the Eurogroup and it was a great success. I think the main frame I would say that the punchline is that Croatia is less exposed and better protected in the crisis being a member of the Eurozone We are also the only country of the European Union ever to have joined both Eurozone and Schengen area on the same day and here I think in particular Mark This was also a long and tough process. So we have transformed our International position literally three weeks ago In terms of preparation Technically what the state was responsible for enough Euro banknotes enough Euro coins Cash machines functioning transfer of payments perfect not a single problem What we witnessed is that some of the economic operators use the occasion of frowning a little bit more than it was Reasonable, but now we are addressing this issue trying to convince them But if you had a government which along all of the other partners in Europe was intervening in terms of state interventionism heavily In order to create a buffer for the externally based crisis a horizontal one Russia's aggression in Ukraine energy crisis food crisis Inflatory pressure we did well We had a very comprehensive package of 3.6 billion euros for our citizens and companies Then we felt that the part of the social responsibility of all the actors actors in our market is to behave adequately and In this respect there is a little bit fine-tuning to be done, but I think it will calm down So our feeling is that Croatia has managed to keep the inflation at ten point eight percent in the last year Which is lower than other countries of the EU who are from Central Eastern Europe and do not wish to join the euro zone yet They have higher one. So I think we did a very good preparation I think we have enough fiscal capacity over the past couple of years to stay to sustain the targeted support of the most vulnerable in this 2023 and we've done a really a great job in terms of regulating prices of electricity gas and also the oil Derivets so with these three elements because energy is the I would say the main source of our problem because if we address this issue All the others will fall in place including the inflation that we have so far done very well And with this stronger position I expect that even though we'll have a lower growth of GDP in 2023 then of course in this year we expect it to be around six percent But still it will not put us in a position where we couldn't cope with all the challenges that I had So I would say a positive conclusion for 2022 and less pessimistic for 2023 on the contrary and the whole atmosphere I've seen here in Davos Seems to be going in that direction that is already a good signal Absolutely, I want to move the discussion now a little bit to two words What what the what Europe needs to bolster its competitiveness? Mrs. Lagarde, I know you have very specific ideas Well, thank you very much And if you want to comment on anything Completely support many of the points that have been made by by colleagues on the panel, but I think as we are by necessity Moving towards this twin transition of digital and green To put it simply and that was perfectly identified in next generation EU and in the Recovery and resilience fund that was set up. So we have to move towards digital and green transition We know that the financing for that is going to be phenomenal According to the Commission numbers if I recall Valdez It's half a trillion dollar that will be needed From now until 2030 in order to move fast in those steps that will give us more independence less vulnerability Towards the foes of this world and if we have to do that we need to take rapid steps Step number one in my view and I know that this is shared by other members of the panel We need to get really serious determined and fast on capital market Union Some of you in this room have heard about capital market Union for the last 10 years I have to but there are a few nuts that need to be cracked in order for capital market Union to actually happen I am less optimistic about banking Union, but capital market Union we can do it if there is enough political Impetus there is goodwill at the Commission to actually do the work that needs to be done It's a single point of entry. It's the bankruptcy law that needs to be slightly Harmonized a bit further a bit better It's tax measures that have now been agreed at the OECD and that need to be ratified Across the euro or the European Union as I'm sure it will before January 24 And more needs to be done in order to have one single Supervisory authority in order to make sure that that capital market Union actually work This is not enough, but it has to be done Why is that because public money will not suffice? Public money will crowd out private investment But public money could certainly be blended with private money in order to finance those significant investment So my suggestion is that we move ahead fast and that we look at all the additional measures that need to be taken If you look for instance at research that was conducted at the ECB Equity is the best way to channel money to those sectors that require innovation It's a simple fact. It's demonstrated by academics and by review Well, guess what if the tax rules are such that you actually encourage debt rather than equity How do we think that we're going to mobilize equity now the Commission has moved? We need to continue that movement in order to encourage equity and there's plenty of money around To go towards those investments that will transition us to a place where we are less vulnerable More independent more sovereign and if CBDC digital euro can accompany the process. I'll be even happier Let me ask you Commissioner about the IRA because you have said that the IRA to drive more European companies closer to China and this and thus run counter to what the US in fact wants to achieve and there's now a task force at the White House There are there are talks Have you have you felt have you seen any progress at Davos because this has been a major topic of discussion Yeah, maybe before I moved to inflation deduction act on our discussions with us just Really express a full support on this work stream on the capital markets union That's indeed a critical for us to move forward both to finance our green and digital transitions and to ensure overall competitiveness of European economy The Europe is very good as regards Startups landscape, but then when it comes to scaling up companies we see many companies going scaling up to us to Asia to other places while primarily US and Asia and Thus, of course, it means that those companies are not Creating all the jobs and economic activities in the EU. So capital market union can be Important part of this answer but to move to the inflation Reduction act indeed when we are discussing green transition, obviously we welcome the aims of the inflation deduction acts that us is Working seriously also on its green transition against climate change but our concern is that it's done in a discriminatory way and in a sense, it's not Helping to build Transatlantic value chains on the green transition, but rather actually severing those value chains so That's why we are indeed engaged at different levels with us and just earlier this week. I had a Discussions on this with US trade representative Catherine Tyne Brussels Well, and that's why we have this also EU US joint task force which is deals with this issue we have I would say halfway satisfactory solutions on Clean vehicles tax credits, but there are many other areas which you need to address on some areas There are some openings from the US side. So We continue to work. We know that further Kind of delegated acts coming from the inflation Reduction act will be prepared by March. So how we still have a bit of a time So we'll have to see how far we will be able to go in terms of addressing our concerns and You think there is an acknowledgement now in the US that they they said They decided on the IRA without regards to because this was an American, you know, I mean, I heard the senators say We never we didn't think for a second about Europe. This was not about Europe And so you're all having now to explain the impact and the consequences Well, you know, I Would not See just like an omission, you know, if it was omission it was probably easier to correct But we all know that also President Biden was campaigning on buy American Yeah, and this is some kind of manifestation of buy American So I think also through this engagement will be able to solve a part of our problems It probably will not be able to Solve all of our problems and for example some of the senators like Zenderman chin already is In a sense saying that he sees also this solution on clean vehicles tax credits as a loop So by no means we can interpret it as an omission. So But Okay, as I said, there are some openings also President Biden himself said the that yes inflation deduction act is Not meant to exclude partners like European Union. So we're trying to build on this and seeing how it materializes in concrete decisions and how the Most discriminatory aspects most negative aspects of inflation deduction act can be addressed Christian, I know you want to to come in probably on capital markets Union But I wanted to also just raise the broader question of we are in a in in a phase now of De-globalization or at least constraints on on globalization and that has ramifications For for European growth and I'd be very interested Prime Minister Rota also from from you To hear what how do you deal with this because you have a specific case for example with semiconductors? Yeah, we have to deal of course with Bose issues inflation reduction act It's it's funny. We constantly were beating the Americans. You're not doing enough and now the implement legislation Which will close to get with the Paris agreement and they were saying no, but not in this way It's a bit silly and And we should we have a bit more self-confidence So I hear some forces in Europe saying we should get rid of the state aid rules Well, that will mean the end of the internal market and there are some saying we need more European funding Well, there's so much state aid rules are going to be loosened from what I heard Targeted and surgical that's okay, but let's make sure that not some people could now implement their agenda Who want to get rid anyway of most of the state aid rules? And that's one of the reasons why the European Union is so successful in the internal market is so successful And also this whole idea of another common funding project. I'm not for it I mean, we have so much common money in the budget in the Resilience fund which came out of for covid And again also here. I mean my country is investing 35 billion between now and 2030 in the energy transition And and we also have to make sure that we have that space in our budgets at the national level cannot all be done at the European level So I think we can get there and with the Americans. I think it is a mix of Unintended consequences, but I think the Commission is right. We should not be naive Biden has been campaigning on by Americans So there must be some of the element of that But I do believe that they want to to with us Try to solve most of these issues and I know the Commission is working on that and I'm not Really pessimistic that we can get there and on on China. I mean the main issue in Europe is we have no coordinated China policy Yeah, we have never been able to do that and it has also has to do that we do not have a Common foreign policy because in the end at the end of the day the big economies will still conduct their own foreign policy Which I understand But at least we should coordinate better and strategize dialogue on China and on other countries and US has a very clear China strategy, which is not necessarily exactly what we want But I'm not very clear on exactly what do you want because you can't you it's very difficult to balance you know satisfying the Americans and Maintaining trade and commercial relations to the extent that You have them today. So I mean I hear often, you know, we want to You can't have it but you're gonna have to go in one direction or the other But it's not that we have to choose between the US and China We need to have our own policy and our own policy should be first of all that we have the mindset that we want to be a player And not a playing field and there is now without enough coordination on China and other foreign policy issues Is that we become the playing fields and we're not a player and even France Germany Italy Spain The Netherlands we are too small to do it on our own. We have to do it collectively these big issues And on China that means of course we it's it's it's there It's it's one and a half billion people. It is an economy which now had the sluggiest growth in 1976 1976 but still it is a huge economy is a huge potential With huge innovation base. So we have to deal with that and at the same time we have legitimate security concerns Long-term we want to make sure that we keep leading edge on for example, semi-con here in Europe and the US We want to make sure that supply chains are not disrupted We ought to make sure that it's not just China or also other countries that we know that some of these high-end Chips can be used in defense In defense system. So we all have to take that into consideration and we are in in dialoguing with Many of our partners including the US how to best deal with that I think we will get to a common Outcome particularly on semi-con, but it's all originates again from a fact that in Europe It is not a commission. This is the Europe the member states not being able to to coordinate sufficiently Prime Minister Plankovich. Do you want to comment on this? Yes when it comes to what is our Main task as as leaders of the government You have the theoretical context you have the institutional framework you have the international Organizations, but you have Electors elections and your own people who need to see that the state which is the closest one that they can see that can help them can actually act and In this last three years, and I said this last year at the panel The only element which made the social cohesion to be kept properly was the state intervention is State interventionism and people recognize that there was no other actor who could replace the state And that's why the efforts which we are doing now after prolonged covid After Russia's aggression to Ukraine energy crisis food crisis inflation Of course that we need to be more flexible when it comes to state aid rules We can't pretend that everything is normal because it's not and We need to find measures which are adequate to be Anticyclical of what Christine is doing by increasing the interest rate, but we need to be able to Have a targeted Subsidies to our companies and citizens that they can go through the period for which they're not guilty And they cannot solve it themselves, especially smaller economies what mark has said about the EU's policy or the EU member states policy vis-a-vis China There were moments when smaller countries were let's say Being put to test why do you have this dialogue China plus 16 17 some countries have left and then you look at the trade Every single day the European Union trades one billion one billion with China The entire Croatian straight with China is only one day of the EU straight with China And when we look at the numbers you see that everybody's at the end of the day pragmatic There is a big difference between China and Russia what Russia has done to Ukraine I don't see with all my background of being a former diplomat and someone that has spent a lot of time in foreign policy I don't see the parallel threat. I see a specific global context for the America But I don't I don't see a similar parallel threat that will endanger our economy our way of a way of life and our security And this is where the specific View with China comes from all of us together, and I think this is important to understand There is no total alignment Immediately as a reflex there is a pragmatic approach where if we are together, of course We are more influential if we are fragmented the one who is bigger stronger will have a better ending the negotiations It's like in every single walk of life that we can imagine. I wonder whether The US administration actually Accepts this this argument. I mean, I you know, I understand what you're saying and I hear it a lot in Europe But I wonder whether the US administration actually appreciates That position I think they want I think they want you I think they want you they would like it to be more aggressive But but still I mean the European Union is the biggest internal market in world history And the collect and and the added up of the European internal markets bigger than the US So it's not that we have to constantly please them We do have security concerns the US is security concerns and and at all can hurry the Germans would say so looking as other into the eye without Presenting yourself as a sort of junior partner. We can get there. I'm absolutely convinced the Americans want that also I mean, it's also in their interest that this part of the world stays successful and and prosperous given all the In balances in the world and all the ripple effects of conflicts elsewhere So there's absolutely no agenda. I'm convinced in the US to to harm us But they have security concerns. We have our concerns and we have to somehow Strategize to get to an outcome, but I think we can get there and we if I can just add one thing We are in a very different place Europe is the first trading partner of 80 countries in the world Yeah, US is first trading partner of 20 countries in the world. So we are in a different place Christian No, I I wanted to make two comments number one, you know, it's so pleasing for me from a private industry to hear that central bank had Commissioner Prime Ministers are all in favor of capital markets union The only question I have is I've been on the board of Deutsche Bank since 2015. Why is why don't we do any progress? And therefore, I think this attitude which is here is exactly that I would even say the capital markets union is the cheapest Booster to the economy we have in Europe and I would even go a step further Without the capital markets union the green deal will not happen. We have two fantastic companies here I just saw from the German corporate industries. I tell you they have so much investments to do in order to do green transition You mentioned the 500 billion that is the net investment per year. We have to do in Europe Now compare the 500 billion to the 100 billion defense extra budget Germany did or to the 200 billion It's impossible to do that why a public finances It's impossible that we can do it by a bank balance sheets It can only done with private with the capital markets union now The second part of that goes very much to the future if you have a capital markets union All our concerns about the venture capital market will also decrease because the more liquidity you get in You also get venture capital into this market and that is the next generation where we have to invest it So the one thing is to transition into green and digital But if we think about the industries which will be predominantly there in 15 20 25 years We need venture capital right now these guys will not come without the capital markets union and thirdly One more sentence to that. I know it will take time Hopefully it will take less than the six years application for the euro from now on because we are really running the clock now But on the way there we can already deal with less regulation for instance on Secularization less regulations when it comes to ESG. I'm all in favor for one taxonomy But let's make sure that mid cap companies in Germany in whatever industry don't have to go through 7,000 of pages of ESG routes They won't get that and the backbone of that economy is mid cap So the middle step to capital markets union is also there where it's necessary without Without compromising on safety and stability and I'm all in favor that let's review regulation I'm also in favor of less regulation Let I know there are a few people who want to come in Marine Just shout or I think there's a mic coming Times a question for president Lagarde just in defense of some of my colleagues You said that journalists are making a big fuss about falls in headline inflation markets seem to be consistently also underpricing your ability to Stick with it as you were why are you failing to convince them? And is that actually a bigger problem for your credibility than looking at inflation expectations, etc? I would invite them to revise their position. I think they would be well advised doing so There's a question over there and then yeah, we've got a few minutes. Hello. My name is at a slough I came from Ukraine and I'm also proud alumni of Maastricht University So first of all when you speak about your being gross We need to remember there is a war in the east of Europe in my country But that's a war for all of us. That's our war for everybody sitting here And I can currently imagine sustainable growth of Europe if we don't succeed in Ukraine Second point probably the saddest part of my life is morning now Every time I open social media I see bad news yesterday a friend of mine died in a helicopter crash Earlier this week we had a bombing of civilian building And I just don't want to tell how many kids died because of that So the last point is please help us help me and other 40 million Ukrainians Not to experience this that's unbearable and I do ask all of you to Continue and accelerate support financial support. We need tanks. Mr. Prime Minister We need weapons to end this war and then to be part of global and European family. Thank you Thank you for this Intervention very very important points and I thought this would be one session where we don't talk about tanks, but It is a very important issue that is very much on everybody's mind. Please go ahead. Yeah I wanted to briefly come on coming on this because Indeed also when we are talking about European economy is the best way to deal with Economic consequences of the war is to stop the war and that's why we need to stay the course We need to continue put pressure on Russia as aggressor state and we need to provide all necessary Support to Ukraine. So I fully agree with this On financial support. We have agreed on 18 billion euros Microfinancial assistance plus package for this year This week we disbursed 3 billion euros and will ensure a stable funding flow for Ukraine throughout the year And this covers substantial part of the Ukraine's financing need for this Year, of course, I expect other international donors to do their part on military supplies Obviously, it's it's a must because if you allow Russia to make gains this war will only spread. So here really Ukraine is not fighting only for itself It's fighting towards the whole Democratic world and for the entire European security architecture and it must have all our Support will from EU for a first time in history. We are providing military Financial support also for military equipment through our European peace facility We are mobilized 3.1 billion euros for this to help finance also member states supplies To Ukraine well, I completely agree and we can learn from Munich 38 What happens if you let an aggressor unchallenged it won't stop at Ukraine So our values are at stake here, but also our collective security So it is crucial that Putin loses and the Ukrainians win Win this war and that means including all the military stuff We can get to you the Netherlands is again placing two and a half billion for this year to help Ukraine through the war effort And we will continue doing what is necessary because your fight is also our fight And I feel this across Europe including the United States and more and more also the global South Coming on board Now at least we have over 140 countries support in the UN resolution Against the Russian aggression and collectively we have to build on that and my simple argument always is this is colonization and In Africa they are just coming out of colonization. So it's also their fight. You are fighting and you're not alone That's what I wanted to tell you and what happened in the NEPRO and yesterday was the helicopter crash is extremely sad and only Makes our resolve stronger to make sure that Sudensky and his team and all Ukrainian people will win this If I may just add one point to just to assure you Croatia was also a victim of aggression 30 years ago If I compare the European Union foreign policy of the time and today This is not 30 years. This is 30,000 years change We were under the United Nations arms embargo, and you have all the solidarity nine rounds and nine packages of sanctions incredible political unity literally almost without a crack and Continuous and increased dynamics in Delivering military aid and weapons for Ukraine to defend itself and to defend defend the values and freedom And we will not as to the extended Netherlands can do but Croatia will continue to support you as we have done so far I'm afraid we have run out of time, so I'm gonna have to wrap this up I will leave you with Two hopes one is when we meet again next year that the war in Ukraine will be Over with Ukraine having won and the other is that we will be celebrating some progress on capital markets union. Yes Thanks


Thank you so much Balki, it's an absolute pleasure to have you out here. Thank you. You know in everything that we've studied about Everybody sees about 50% of Any kind of marketing ROI comes from creative But I don't know whether people are really walking the talk in less than about what a Little over a month IPL is going to start again Last year there were 71 advertisers on TV and about claimed upwards of 400 on the digital streaming piece They spent anything from in single digit crores to upwards of hundred crores What is your sense are these pop advertisers actually Putting the same amount of thought into the creative that goes into the investment into something as big as an IPL Or are they missing a trick? I'm going to leave it open to you if you talk and then I'll just keep on coming with some Chabi's in the middle Yeah, thanks Vikram pleasure being here. Hi guys Thing is that the title of not media was added by Vikram not me See actually a few years ago and there was a There's a great experience I went through he would be judging some IPL ads the ads for which came on IPL and let me tell you the honest truth is There were the trashiest ads that you could possibly find and that really shocked us because and it's become I mean, it's not become trashier, but it's remained Pretty mediocre All along and it's very surprising that the most expensive media in the country Has possibly the worst quality of ads and that's really shocking You're looking at Super Bowl, which just happened a day before yesterday yesterday, whatever and We all look forward to the Super Bowl commercials as much as Super Bowl itself Okay, why can't IPL which is the premium? advertising Let's say program or the place to be in and is watched by the most number of people in this country Why can't people produce the best advertising for it? Why can't marketers insist on? Absolute, you know top notch create of course. It's all about the brand It's all about what the brand stands for all that haven't been said Why can't the best creativity be right here because otherwise you're not getting banged for your buck You're just kind of putting being there and saying okay more people are watching my brand Somebody will remember it far more than the other kind. That's what's happening today We just they're an IPL for people to just remember you what a cost to kind of pay. I mean For that you can do so much more with it and we are doing all kinds of manipulations to get our brands to places Unlike, you know, most countries we have us. We have such a simple audience. They watch cricket and The some of the worst ads are on cricket We have a we have a captive audience right through it's just not IPL Cross the World Cup across a lot of matches which is which are happening Millions and millions of people and we are searching for ways to attack people through that medium and this medium and that medium And you just don't give it give it to them when they're watching it They're there and we spend so little time. Everybody is in a rush to make IPL ads I mean, why is this rush to make IPL ads? Shouldn't that be the rush through the year to kind of wait for IPL? It is damn expensive Okay, I read somewhere that there are Super Bowl 30 second spot whether it's digital whether it's streaming with the streaming or whether it's on television It's about seven million dollars for a 30 second spot comparatively our You know, they had spent the cost of an ad would be about 60 lakhs for a 30 second spot Little less 50 45 something I 45 lakhs in our currency now in our scheme of things is damn expensive for one spot there and how much of thought and how much of safe people are playing so safe and so Regressive on the most expensive platform out of fear You know sometimes fear makes you do the most ridiculous things of actually wasting all the money Because nobody should tell me that you know, I didn't do the right thing You did the right thing, but nobody saw it or people saw it and forgot about you or people didn't even think about you Where you had the chance of a lifetime. There are millions watching Come on. Yeah, Bombard me Can my ad be better than the program that I'm watching or as interesting as the program that I'm watching and that's a program made for that You need your ad to be more exciting than IPL. Otherwise advertising Advertising an IPL is a waste of time forget the figures forget the forget the viewership forget all the stuff that happens You are not rewarding the viewer. You are not using the viewer. It's like, you know, it's like I keep saying this it's like You know a great filmmaker a great actor People are rushing to kind of watch his movie You don't even need publicity to come of these big stars or these big filmmakers a big franchises when they kind of release a film you have a captive audio We have millions of people already wanting to see it. You just have to kind of you know Be above their expectations We're just cashing on the fact they're coming in there and say, okay, you've got our money and see screw them So say a bit more on this. What do you why is it? What do you find about today's stuff that's trashy and how do you like the brief to be given to an agency? I which makes them sort of I don't even need to say that you always see IPL ads Decoded for us because I'm sure Look, I think it's trashy. No, I think the advertising don't think no Advertiser will come and say or no creative person or a new agency will ever come and say it's advertising is trashy They will all have reasons for it They will all say the brand is going through this cycle or the brand's going through that cycle or we need this in this market There are millions of ways to kind of you know Justify anything and under the Sun, but you know a damn ad you know Yeah, of course, it should talk to consumer But is it making him interested while you're talking to him or her? It's so ridiculous. When was the great last great ad that you saw right here You tell me one that you which according to you was a really a great ad and the IPL used well I think the the last Swiggy used to use it very well, you know, Swiggy did some interesting advertising on IPL, but By and large and I'm talking of I mean I may be forgetting right now Which one or two things I may have forgotten which may have been good But look at the number of advertising Look at the amount of advertising an IP and look at the amount of things that you can remember You know and we've forgotten this entire thing we've all become afraid. It's just not an IPL Of course in all of the places they've become more and more afraid and to Shantanu's You know thing of saying creativity is I mean it's it's creativity is a bad word. It's it's actually a buzzword for things That don't work, you know for in marketer's heads creativity is something that is it's it's it's a phrase a polite phrase Given for things that don't work I actually believe it's the only thing that makes things work and I'm talking of that kind of creativity Which makes things work, but I'm saying there is a there is a Extraordinary amount of fear that is in marketer's heads today I've never seen this before and actually we've regressed in communication We've regressed in advertising like never before the quality of advertising the quality of thinking the quality quality of ideation Of course, it comes a lot of theory why it's right, okay, but it doesn't it you know It's not right. You've got to read thousand pages of theory to think it's right, but it's not right You're not making use the fundamental power of advertising Which is to charm me which is to capture me which is to make me smile which is to make me laugh Which is to make me want to watch it again and add has to be as interesting as the content first number one If it is not it's a waste of time. I genuinely believe of marketing start looking at it and if pressure is put actually on marketing heads by heads of companies To kind of really make if you're going to take a very expensive program is my create is the is what I'm putting out Crack a jack our people are going to sit and applaud Why can't we have a reel of the best IP rights? Why can't we be the soap of Super Bowl of the world here? We've got the best sport. We've got the best tournament. We're tom-tomming the whole world that you know It's fabulous and we've created history out here, but we don't have ads to show for it and most importantly Always believe in this we are a country which which gets into quality a lot later than quantity Okay, we just believe okay. We've got the numbers. We've got the figures and everything else the quality we we we You know We put it on every other aspect of life. We say our roads are bad. This is bad. That's bad. This is bad Everything's bad. Okay, we've been doing say somebody will come and make an announcement We've did we've done 1500 kilometers of roadways off roads We've built this year, but we'll go on saying this road is bad. That's road is bad. This road is bad But we never look at it when it comes to our what we are doing out there We're kind of spending tons and tons of money We are not looking at quality in the tons of money and we defining quality wrongly We're defining quality very conveniently. We're defining quality in fear and we're losing the power of advertising Which is to actually live in fear advertising is a bit of a gamble and it'll always be a bit of a gamble And it has to be that great movies are a bit of a gamble You just don't know you you think most things are right you do it as common sensically as possible and you take that leap After all that common sense and that leap if that gamble a person is not willing to take That person should not be advertising ever because advertising is a gamble You use the word fear a few times and people are trying to play safe Is the problem right now lying with the agencies or the advertisers or both? I don't I don't know If agencies have enough of a voice to be a problem today I just believe that A lot of it Of course, finally the creators are the agencies that they must take the blame for it But I think it's got a lot to do with marketeers It's got to do a lot of lot lot to do with marketeers are not pushing the agencies to kind of deliver Uh The kind of work that that is going to make people as interested in the ads as in the program because sometimes I just believe The ambition of the market here dictates the quality of advertising You know, I think the ambition is about More I shouldn't look bad Then I should fly You know and fly is a gamble you need to take gambles to fly You can always be where you are and nobody will notice you and nobody will curse you nobody will praise you You can go on very safely But if you want to fly you've got to take that gamble be willing to be trashed a bit, you know But I think 90 percent 90 percent of the time when you do take a very sense When you when you've got your thoughts right when you've got your common sense in place and when you take the leap You will fly and to me The bigger aspect of it is not so much of marketeers and advertisers. It is we have a program We have something that beats the media maze that we are in We've got a ready-made Thing called cricket in this country. Okay, which I mean we just watch cricket You're all along. We watch cricket if just we advertise everybody said I want to advertise and trigger and did the best as intriguing I think most of your problem would be solved You know, most of the company's problem would be solved. They got the right strategy did the best work on cricket I remember like for once upon a time Brands like havels and a lot of brands even even a lot of unilever brands were built on cricket You know now very few of those brands take cricket actually are not doing cricket for some strange reason Maybe because it's too expensive or maybe because They believe that their kind of advertising does not need cricket that to me itself is a little bit of you know Why is this happening? Let me get a media Let me ask you a media question which is that The to answer to you know, a lot of advertisers feel that End of day it's all about reaching people with a my message and it's maybe cheaper to reach my message By taking a bunch of spots across a lot of tv programs rather than a very expensive ipl. We from your standpoint do you think Advertising on an ipl. How's it qualitatively different from Building more reach on the same reach much cheaper through say Dramas and movies and and other news programs and so on so forth Do you think that entire environment of an ipl or Maybe a big boss does that help a brand if you have to put an ad there No, it's not so much the environment like you just now. I think we've heard enough of conversation Everybody's everybody's talking about it about the consumer attention span because he's not he or she's not interested in your message It's like almost like you're forcing something through that to that person We all know the amount of distraction that we have we all know the amount of content that we're not watching We are kind of you know flooded with content today. There is more demand than there is more supply than demand We're not able to watch we actually watching a little less than what we used to watch because there's too much of it Now in that environment if you're just talking of reach i've reached you So what a lot of things reach people, but do they ever open it? A lot of things kind of this thing. Do they ever kind of see it? Do they ever interact with it? Do they ever react to it? They may see it, but do they react to it? I think there is a difference between reach and reach successfully But each successfully means I reach. Thank you. Hello. How are you?  We are actually A race that is watching so many things happening all across the world Everything's interesting bombarding you insta reels are far more interesting your reels every day You're getting things videos that are far more interesting and advertising I have seen meetings where people are laughing at a reel or videos which are fascinating Which are some really funny stuff and they're discussing a very boring ad How is it possible? How is it possible for a human to be inhuman at the same time? I mean it's like that. It's in five seconds. It's the same brain. That's going to see both It's the same eyes that are going to see both the same heart that's going to process both What's happened to our world? Why is advertising? Which is supposed to lead social change which is supposed to lead fashion trends Which is supposed to lead behavioral change which is supposed to kind of you know Give me a catchphrase. Give me a slang. Give me new things or give me a new attitude Why is it following following following so way behind culture? We're supposed to set the trends. We're not supposed to follow. Hey, what's that new catchphrase? What's that new slang that's going on on social media? Let me use that in my ad and say I'm in touch with the young youngsters out there On this entire element of be brave just be more interesting It's not just be brave. Just it's not just be brave brave is uh is is a Funny word and just not be interesting. It's about be leading. I mean think so that you can lead set trends We are following trends today. We're all about studying trends You know sometimes this whole thing whenever we have a problem in advertising a lot of people Who uh who are in all other kinds of businesses in advertising spring to make sense out of this maze Actually, the sense still isn't in the same place Sense is about beating the maze sense about beating the maze which uh maze by being more interesting We don't need so much more confusion to kind of understand the confusion Today what's happening is we're revealing and understanding the confusion with a lot more confusion Nobody's having a solution. We're saying digital. We are saying television. We are saying we understand We understand what digital is we understand what it is the same damn shit goes into all this stuff When you say digital advertising out here a lot of that would be ipl on hotstar or ipl on something else that would be digital Okay, a lot of it at least 50% of that would be that It's not going to be anywhere else. So what are we talking about? We're still saying the same damn stuff. We're just using a different kind of a thing to see it Of course, yeah, attention span is less But trust me if you have a great ad the person will say hey add dick, okay Who says that today?  Why are we spending crores to kind of just put that ad out there and nobody's noticing me If I can do lots of other things I'll get noticed with 100 that money Jumping poor chip imagine a company spending that kind of money. What is the logic of reach? I don't understand it. I don't get it. I don't get it that we've stopped using Just common sense So that's a clarion call for just I mean trying to lead the thinking with your brand by I mean Whatever you do on other stuff like your instagrams and all the rest of it You're not using the same yardsticks to actually do your own advertising which is so important for you True. You're not even doing that in life I mean you want to see all kinds of interesting places in the world.  I'm just giving it to you on a plateau but take it um I think you know I think I after after that judging process. I wanted to say, uh, let's let's start an agency It starts in november and shuts down in april Okay, which is we'll do ads only for appear the most premium stuff Most premium media how much you spend on media the creative will be absolutely premium If it's not premium, don't pay us. It's absolute premium absolute kind of thing six month agency folds up. Bye. Bye. See you in november Okay, really want to do that and sam you want to do it? Please do it Okay, and it's a fabulous thing because we are starved on the most expensive medium We are starved of ideas. We're starved.  So by the same token. I think you mentioned it, but I just want to reconfirm Do you think the advertising that you have to do say for ip l or on tv And on digital to say geo geo cinema needs to be same Or or does it Or will does just the format of a of a digital for thing change things No, of course you can do a lot more things with digital is a syntax different there syntaxes are very different The idea may not be very different Even the execution may not be different But they can do added things with that particular execution on digital Which you may not be able to television because there's there's so many other Interactive things that you can do on digital which you can't do with this stuff And there are so many more interesting things that it's an idea can develop into on digital which you can't do on television So digital is actually hugely advantages. It can actually make it a lot more creative than what it is You know strangely it's making us You know retract becomes smaller than become bigger anything that you've seen on digital that has blown your mind What I see I don't see television these days. We watch we all watch only digital So what we're watching is basically all the ads and all this stuff. I don't think I've watched First of all any ad that has been blown my mind for a long time And but on cricket I don't know. I think If maybe in in over a coffee and a cigarette I might be able to think of a couple of things Nothing's kind of just coming out hitting at me and say wow, what an ad I haven't seen that I saw 10 Super Bowl commercials yesterday all of them. I mean Costing seven million dollars to air once and the whole world has seen it What what a fantastic experience would be that if we did an ad once and And and the audience actually demanded for it to be screened again in my appeal I mean that would be the day when we won't screen it pay for it We'd be great kind of stuff to kind of do why can't why can't we just be more adventurous? Why can't we be more ambitious? We have a platform. We have no confusion. The consumer is not distracted He is watching IPL. He is watching cricket. She is watching cricket. They are all watching cricket. Everybody is watching Shantanu was talking about how It can become the entire pull versus the push where consumers with all this distraction if they can find something interesting they'll ask for it And you're saying that an interesting ad can be one such way to do that Hugely and that's what ads are supposed to be You're supposed to kind of stop in whichever environment and say wow. What is this? You're distracting it should not be able to if you're more distracted the ad is going to be even more interesting That's all it is okay, uh, just a more general question in the Years that you've been out of active agency life How have you seen the agency side? Let's not flagellate the Advertisers, but how is the agency? for the creative agency ecosystem changed I think I think I would want to say they I'm saying we because I still Believe in I'm an advertising and I will always be an advertising. We're all swimming in confusion Okay, we're using confusion as almost like, you know sound of Doomsday here that's coming there. God knows what's happening. Let's do make this person happy that person happy Let's kind of do so, you know maintain the business But a lot of people haven't changed from the way they've kind of been doing business before It's exactly the same With a few more with a few different kind of expressions in meetings and presentations or whatever But I think this agency structure shockingly remains the same That is that is that itself is kind of amazes me why it is the same And what is more? Shocking is Well, while adexes are growing while people are spending more on advertising I don't think advertising agencies themselves are growing that's shocking That actually means that people are not seeing the value of an idea people are not saying hey Only you can give me that idea people are saying anybody can give me these ideas So therefore the money is going down because I'm not able to charge a premium to a person If that person does not believe that only I can produce the idea. It's a simple thing advertising is also about It's about you pay a professional You trust a professional because a professional does a damn good job and you believe that professional is the professional I want to go with If you can say that to advertising if you say that to an advertising agency and say nobody with them can do that stuff Then you're rocking and and I thought and I think something like an IPL or something like You know a showcase where people are seeing your advertising can be a big Reboot for advertising also I also believe that a way to do it even even for IPL and I want to speak to somebody at geotube about it Is they also look at it quantity also look at 2.3 screw a cross subscribe Viewers they have that little thing at the corner of the screen. They go to 4.5 5.5 I just believe they also made it like a flagship platform for Advertising to say improve the quality reward better advertising See at the end of the year at the end of the tournament If you were to have a jury and they were to select the three best ads and they were to return Let's say if your advertising is the best I would give you 15 percent of what you spend on IPL back to you I mean, it's just a thing to push push the entire thing. It's fabulous. I mean look at the amount of people who'll be Finally the value of a platform doesn't increase just the numbers You can go from hot star you can go to geo you can go to this thing you are just depending on stuff It also can elevated quantity or qualitatively, you know, wow, I'm going to see the best on geo I'm going to see the best of ads. I'm going to see the best of matches. I'm going to see how do you how does a platform Also guarantee that you can do that too. There are ways to kind of incentivize Advertisers to produce better advertising. You know the word trust has been used twice. Shantanu talked about a drop talked about it if this entire The brave new world of advertising that we would like to get back to How do we get the clients to to trust the agency? I mean because somewhere along the line, it's how do we make it from a vicious to a virtue? See, I don't I don't think that there is a process for this Because they can't be a they can't be a pro process for this entire thing I think that's to be done by one example The moment you have one example of something you will see lots of people following the moment you have one kind of One incentive I really believe geo can do this I really believe geo can actually say this year We're focusing on the quality of advertising and on ipl We will reward the three best campaigns right you will see a marked change in advertisers suddenly. Oh, shit The the entire logic will be reversed and saying something something something to justify the same logic Okay, but it has to be done by example somebody has to fight the system somebody some advertiser has to fight Their system internally some advertiser has to take it will happen It's going to happen very fast because this kind of blowing up of money for Absolutely low returns like this is it's not it's not going to it's not going to be tenable for too long So it will happen, but I just speed it up I sincerely hope that somebody really slogs their butt off pushes the system And fights the it's it's it's actually requires a lot of resilience to fight the system to get that breakthrough And set an example and I on on cricket or ipl on cricket a lot of people Like look at what a phone look at a lot of stuff that happened before look at I Idea was in cricket. What a phone is in cricket all these were built on that stuff. They were flagship Advertising cricket that's not happening on ipl. Somebody has to fight the system today be resilient enough It's going to take a lot of stuff effort both from the advertiser as well as the agency But once that's done you will find The floodgates open you will see people coming on it's not that we had suddenly become A creative list kind of an industry. No, there are fantastic brains all all over there are fabulous people Somehow the system has gotten to a shell of saying we don't know really what's happening Does advertising really work and they're still spending cross while still asking the same question Does advertising really work? They're saying it very softly, but they're still spending money because they don't know the truth Of it because you can't say it doesn't work because they may lose a big opportunity So it does it work it works.  So that that thing and all that stuff is there. We just kind of pass the thing just sail through Ladies and gentlemen wake up call from balki rebel with a cause. Thank you guys together


you. Thanks very much for the invitation to present today. It's very nice to be here and very excited to show you what we've been doing part of the research in our lab. I just thought I'd start off by introducing our lab. We call ourselves the Sustainable Food Production Research Group at Griffith Union. We're a member of the Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security. There's a link there. You can go and find out more about the centre there if you'd like to. I'm a member of a group that also includes another presenter today, so Ido Bar. He'll be telling you about another one of our research programs, but we've got a few other research fellows and a number of PhD students that are currently enrolled with us. The sorts of programs we generally work on are today. I'll be talking to you about our biosensor for development for diagnostics of plant pathogens, but we also do work on looking at the evolution and adaptation of fungal species and again, you know, there's going to talk about one of those today. We lead the National Puppeye Breeding Programme, which has a lot of work in it to do with breeding for better quality and flavour, but also a bit of pathology in it, too, that we collaborate with the Queensland Department of Ag. Ido is also leading another program on flavour and sensory profile genomics work in Puppeye. So we've got a myriad of partners and investors that we work with there, but today I'm going to talk to you about the power of electrochemical biosensors and particularly focusing on this pathogen or disease, botrytis-grain mold and the pathogens that cause that in temperate legumes. So for those of you that don't know, botrytis species are necrotrophic fungal pathogens and they infect a lot of different host crops across the agricultural, horticultural and ornamental plant world. The main pathogens on temperate legumes are botrytis sinaria, the major pathogen, but this botrytis phage can co-occur with botrytis sinaria on a couple of different crops, including favour bean and lentil. Together, they cost the Australian temperate legume industry quite a lot of money each year and that was a survey that's done a few years ago now, so I expect it's probably potentially even worse now that we are experiencing a couple of more wet years and the cropping industries have started to expand. So why do we want better diagnostic tools for this particular pathogen for informing disease management? Well, it's really for us at the moment for application, for surveillance and monitoring and then the information that's generated would then go into better informing the decision-making and that includes the use and the timing of fungicides because currently there's a massive amount of fungicides that are poured onto the crops based on the best modelling that we currently have, but it's more around predictive rainfall and not necessarily on knowledge of what's actually in the paddocks. So to be a good diagnostic tool, it obviously needs to be accurate, so specific to the target organism, sensitive in other words able to identify or predict the presence of the pathogen prior to symptomology development for the best use of fungicides. Quantitative, so really good to know the loads of inoculum out there in the paddock and then marrying that information up with knowledge on the epidemic potential, which is growing. The diagnostic needs to be relatively fast to be useful in the paddock, affordable and portable as well as robust, so reliable within the cropping environment. So that comes to the validation work that I'll talk about at the end of my presentation. Really what happened for me and my group was I was sitting in a PhD confirmation seminar, actually no, it was the end of, it was their thesis candidate review milestone which is at the end of the PhD and I was listening to this particular student give a talk about how they produced these biosensors to detect analytes in human saliva and urine that were then useful for determining potential for cancer. And this fellow here, Mohamed Shadiki, and I then decided that we would look at translating that exact technology pretty much from what he was doing with cancer research to see whether we could make it work for plant pathogens and agriculture and water cultural applications. And that's when we found a suitable student, that's Marzia Bilkis there, and what I'm about to present is quite a lot of the work from her PhD thesis. So along the way we've published a couple of review articles, but I'm still working on that main scientific publication that you'll hear about the work that I'll present to them. So what is a nanobias sensor? Well it's a device that measures an event whether it be biochemical or biological using generally several different ways of detecting that event. They can be electronic, they can be an optical signal and it's usually collected using some sort of probe. So biosensors commonly comprise a biological recognition molecule or otherwise known as a bioreceptor that's immobilized onto the surface of a signal transducer that then recognizes the analyte which is being sought and subsequently transmits a signal that's detectable as I said. So the analyte and often in biomedical research is called a biomarker is from in our world usually the causal organism or the pathogen. It could be a secondary pathogen product or it could be a host product and most of what we work with relates to nucleic acid but it could also be the product from a protein expression or some other metabolite. They're fished out then using a catcher probe that attaches them to the bioreceptor surface and the bioreceptor surface will often then comprise nanomaterials that enable the separation of that initial captured analyte from the rest of the soup of the background that it's been fished out of then allows concentration of that analyte and then subsequent diagnosis and quantification and often this uses a secondary catcher probe to do this. So I'm sort of very simplistically going through the steps here because it is complex it's our civil it is quite complex and it's taking me a while to get my head around this as well and the complex binding then creates a chemical signal that's captured by the transducer and in the work that we've done that signal is then converted into an electrical signal that's then detected in other work a lot of other previous work and ongoing work the catcher probe may use an enzyme that's convert converts the signal to a cop color change and you know a good example of that would be a pregnancy test kit and some of the diagnostic test kits we're seeing evolving currently without without particular pandemic that's occurring. So just to go through this again the target analyte for us is a leaf or a sample for a folio sample because we're working with necrotrophic folio pathogens the analyte that we actually extract then is a nucleic acid that's then captured using a functionalised biosensor molecule that then stimulates an electrochemical change that's then detected. So why have we gone for the electrochemical route as opposed to the you know assay or down the sort of color change route? There's reasons why you would go down a much faster color change route you get a very instantaneous signal but you can't quantify that necessarily so and particularly not using the methodologies that we're trying to apply here so really it's a way of using very small easy to use of low cost devices. The binding leads to a change in current or voltage and the change in that charge distribution after binding is captured by the transducer as I said and in a nano biosensor the transducer comprises a nano material with the advantages that yes they're very small nano particles but they have very high total surface area so you're likely to capture quite a bit more there. The ability to bind probes for secondary capture is also there and there are other chemical properties that different nano particles can be loaded with to enable further functionality such as magnetic separation and in the case of the particles we're using an oxidative reaction that occurs that leads to the stimulation of that electrochemical signal. So really what I want you to do is just imagine in real time if we could implement nano biosensors for informed disease management we're really supporting real-time decision-making by providing the growers with rapid and accurate diagnosis and quantification but also feeding into more accurate modeling around epidemics and so therefore these are very useful for that continuous surveillance and monitoring that would feed into this holistic decision-making process. Now our target pathogens as I told you before were the species that caused botrytis disease, botrytis-grain mold so our the aims of this particular part of our research was to develop first of all molecular probes that are sorry nucleic acid probes that are attached to the nanoparticles for electrochemical biosensors and then we also wanted to quantify those target organisms but also discriminate them so they're discrete from each other knowing that they co-occur in the field and therefore understanding the ratio of that co-occurrence into the future would probably better reform that disease management. So we needed to determine the limits of detection and we did that using titrated pure fungal DNA standards to begin with to create some standard curves. We then wanted to diagnose discriminate and quantify the species within the plant host backgrounds because potentially there's going to be interference from other molecules with tab lights that occur in that particular environmental background. We then wanted to use them to quantify them in the field again under the environmental conditions that the plants actually grow in and that the pathogens actually occur and then we wanted to determine if the licenses were useful to detect potential latent infection knowing that latent infection of botrytis species is a really big problem in many industries. So the first thing we had to do was to find our best possible target analytes, nucleic acids, probes, all names for the same thing. So we needed to find sequences that were conserved for the target species but discriminatory among them and they're quite closely related taxonomically. So the first effort was to source a published primer pair, a couple of primer pairs from literature from Farnett L back in 2015 and we just went ahead and used those primers as pros and just initially did some traditional PCR on a set of isolates that we collected over the years and from the most recent cropping seasons mostly from Faber bean, lentil and we had one from Chickpea and grape as well. So we had a few isolates from Cineria, of Cineria, a few of Faden and what we found was that the, we also included the type isolates from the ATCC collection for Cineria Faden and what we found was that the published Cineria primers were not able to amplify from the typed isolate despite us trying multiple times to get this to work and also it didn't pick up one of our isolates from the Kingsford region down in South Australia. So it was not consistent. The good thing was that it didn't amplify anything from Betryda's baby. So and on the flip side the Betryda's baby published pros, they didn't amplify from Cineria but they also amplified all the Faden isolates that we tried it again. So we sort of thought we could do better, we needed to find more consistent probe for Betryda's Cineria for the Australian situation. So we then sought other literature that specifically published around Betryda's Cineria, specific sequences and tried a few of those. I won't go through all of the trials and errors, you can imagine a lot of PCRs and repeat amplifications trying to get these to work. We ended up actually redesigning some primers and we actually did use the net 1G, the necroprosis ethylene-inducing protein sequence and we re-designed these and we're able to come up with very consistent Betryda's Cineria specific amplification and Faden specific amplification. So this was pretty much where we landed with determining how analytes as targets to go forward with. We then wanted to see how sensitive these were on pure fungal DNA. So we developed a 10-fold titration series from 10 photographs up to 10 nanograms and you can see clearly here a very nice standard curve was produced for both of those with very high mass square amounts. So pretty happy with those and we then went on to generate our genome calculation from the amplification that we achieved and I won't go through that but we've had it tried and tested. We're pretty sure we're onto a good thing and you can have a look at this if you want to go back and look at the slides later on. So effectively what we came up with was from a traditional QPCR perspective and using that titration where we had a threshold of detection around 100 photographs per microliter which equated to about two genomes per QPCR reaction which is pretty good and probably sensitive enough to be honest but then we wanted to convert this to something else to another sort of sensitive device as I've explained. So the next thing we needed to do is just check the sensitivity in a plant background. So we created a bio-SA and we sprayed some plants with different concentrations of the fungus separately and our controls were obviously just water. We also used positive controls from our ATCC collection isolates and what we found was that just using PCR, traditional PCR, we had detection threshold in a plant background was when the plants were sprayed with about 10 to the 5 spores per mil which equated to about 100 spores per microliter. So not particularly sensitive. So then moving on to QPCR we again inoculated the plants we actually used the same plant material. We collected the tissues at 24, 36 and 48 hours after inoculation and we then took 100 milligrams of leaf tissue and extracted the total DNA from that and used that as our template. So interesting observations and thoughts here. First of all it's unlikely that the inoculum was evenly distributed across the whole of the plant material so you've got to think about what does 100 milligram sample actually represent in the real world. It was obvious that the fungal amounts increased over time so so there's obviously growth as the fungal material occurring on the plant material and interestingly despite the fact that we assume the same amount of inoculum is applied in all cases. Consistently more botrytocineria was detected than botrytous baby amounts of fungus. So this sort of led us to an initial thought around maybe the scenario by receptor was potentially more sensitive than the botrytous baby one. So the next step really was for us to convert this to an electro-nano biosensor. There's a mouthful and the first thing was to show you here is how we captured the targets, the analytes. So again material the plants were inoculated and the DNA was extracted and again a reminder this is plant and fungal material. The DNA is overheated to produce single strands and then incubate it with target capture probe or bireceptor and that's that probe is either scenario or baby specific. It's also has a biotinylated sequence bound to it that's useful for then fishing out using dinobits which have streptavidin coated on them. Once that's fished out we can magnetically separate that from the soup from the background solution and we can then release that once it's separated out and concentrated to go forward with. So that's then put prepared it onto a screen printed carbon electrode SPC in you'll see that come up later which once it's on the electrode it binds with the nanoparticles which are gold plated the gold bloated ferric oxide nanoparticles which also create creates in a redox reaction through a rune hexide electro catalytic cycle which exchanges electrons. I'm not a chemist that's how I can explain it I'm sure they're made chemists onboard that that know more about this reaction but it's a very well published phenomenon but that electro catalytic exchange then creates an electrochemical signal and that the intensity of that signal then translates back to the amount of fungal target analyte that was captured in the very first place. So it's a pretty elegant method which doesn't need amplification that's the big point here you don't need a PCR reaction the PCR reaction was just to test the specificity and sensitivity of those of those virus set more sequences that we use. So we then wanted to test the specificity of our virus set to probes if you like similarly to the way we've done using PCR. So we used our our ATCC isolates and we tested those that that method I've just described in various ways with various controls where we just use a bare electrode we then used the electrode with the RU hex on it to stimulate catalytic exchange with and without the the DNA that the virus setters and with and without the pure fungal DNA being applied to it. So you can see this on this table there are instances where we're testing the Fabie virus set to the with Cineria DNA and we're testing the Cineria receptor with Fabie DNA. So they're like the cross reactions that we're testing for and then these are the positive response reactions that we're hoping to see work really well with the Fabie or the Cineria receptor being tested with the Fabie or the Cineria analyte or DNA and here's here's some results from that. So you can see the bare electrode next to know nothing there nothing significant. Then you're stepping through using the electrode with without the RU hex you still get a little bit of a signal but it's still considered the background signal. Again when you add the the DNA there's a there's a non-significant difference I would consider that between there there's the no template again non-significant and then you start to see what happens when you put this one is Cineria DNA on a Fabie probe next to no signal the same with the Cineria Fabie on the Cineria probe and then you see the response the positive response of the Fabie DNA on the Fabie probe and the Cineria DNA on the Cineria probe and the note here is around the strongest signal again that we're seeing with the positive reaction from the Cineria probe which is really interesting and needs to be considered later on. So looking at the sensitivity of these probes again using the same titration series that we used for the QPCR reactions we were able to show a very nice standard curve here again and that our kind of our threshold of detection was around 10 phantograms which is relates down to less than a single fungal score so you know it's as sensitive as it could possibly be in other words and we had a very similar reaction for the Fabie biosensor probe using again the pure fungal DNA and the titration series some really nice ask where it's at and by no means that this happened overnight this was a huge amount of optimization and replication that's sitting behind all of these very easy to present graphs that Marcia did a huge another work to produce again it's really interesting to see if you have a look at the the axis there that the signal detected using the Fabie probes if I quickly flip back was about a third of that detected using the sorry the Fabie probe was about a third of that detected using the the Cineria probe so again showing probably a drop in sensitivity for whatever reason we then looked at the electro biochemical sensitivity of detection in in planter so we treated the plant similarly to what I've shown you before with different spore loadings again just spray inoculated so again you consider the homogeneity of the spores on the plant surface and again extracted 100 milligrams of leaf tissue collected at different time points after inoculation and this is just showing you that at 24 hours after inoculation we're able to detect down to 10 to the 10 to the 2 spores per mil so you know shift of is it two or three fold from the detection using traditional PCR and again you can see a very nice standard curve here that instead of titration of DNA pure fungal DNA it relates to the spore loading onto the plants here again just pointing out that the detection the signal detected with the pure fungal DNA with the Fabie was about half of the signal detected with with the Cineria DNA and probes so we're looking this is just the results in a time series here and just to show you that the sensitivity was of detection was robust across the time points assessed and importantly this is just the three time points important it's this is long before characteristics of the disease are visible so long before you'll see any symptomology or even that's kind of fluffy white mycelial growth occurring in the field and we're really talking you know within within two days here so the next really important step for us to was to then take this to the field and and make it as compact as possible to validate for various reasons and we undertook this using two different trials two different experiments sets of experiments one in the Shade House at the Wake campus in Adelaide and working alongside partners at Saudi there Jenny Davidson and and colleagues and then the other field site testing was also in partnership with with those colleagues but going out to real field sites our favor being across South Australia and is I mean it's not a single handheld device at this point in time it is still a set of of small instruments that would be able to be plugged into a car and you know sort of a quick kit that's used to do a rough extraction and a quick spin and to get the the eluded sort of nucleic acid containing solution here through onto onto our handheld modulizer and then into the the sensing device so it in honor in all honesty this fits in a suitcase that nice here took on a plane and went down to Adelaide to use so we still portable at this stage so at the Wake campus we looked at three lentil cultivars and this was part of their annual trials that were going on so we were lucky enough to coincide with what was going on for them and we kind of worked in with that and those trials have been sprayed with same method I've just talked about just handheld sprayed inoculum with equal parts of sporinoculum from the trial scenario and the trials baby in a mixed spore state two by ten to the five spores per mill of each of those to spores and then we extracted the leaves at 24 and 48 hours after inoculation of more observations and thoughts you can see here that um generally again more fungus was detected over time 24 at 48 hours compared to 24 hours potentially there's a cultivar influence here and I'm yet to check but is cultivar bold for instance more susceptible to the trial scenario and you know if so potentially there's you know there's something on the other cultivars that's uh retarding the growth of the fungus over that time period that initial sort of establishment period and again more betrata scenario was detected um then betrata's baby despite the same quantity of inoculum applied at the very beginning um and then equated to about a 1.5 times more growth of betrata's scenario than betrata's baby in a single mix for inoculum on a single plant um so in other words and that had been adjusted for the probe sensitivities of one to three that we kind of determined from our previous work so the big question is is this is this an example of real-time competition going on and um we're yet to to confirm that with some further work um by doing some nice histopathology the other field trial that we did was in three field sites across um South Australia so real field trials and um they were sampled in 2020 from both both this is important to note both symptomatic and the asymptomatic um tissues and this is what the tissues look like so you can see the symptoms there versus the clean tissues that were collected um and the inoculum was natural infection and so the expectation it was that we would um because this was favor being that we would be able to detect both scenario and favor we collected five symptomatic and five asymptomatic clients per site and the results showed us that we had similar levels of fungus detected across all sites slightly more at Mandela but also surprisingly similar levels were detected in asymptomatic tissues as they were collected in symptomatic tissues so wow that's that's interesting for us because it's sort of then starts us thinking about that whole kind of increase in fungal biomass and and whether uh the fungus is is increasing in biomass in in that time frame without creating symptoms um there were some outliers with significantly more fungus detectants um and we're not sure how to explain that except that we know that epidemics and what always occur in evenly across our paddock so that then sort of brings me to the last point I want to make um is around the importance of diagnostics of latent infection because if we're detecting similar amounts of of fungal essentially amount of fungus on asymptomatic tissues as we are on symptomatic tissues without symptoms being apparent it does indicate that there is some latent growth of the fungus occurring which is a huge problem we know in other cropping industries and if we can understand more about this it would definitely inform our predictive epidemic modeling more much as the presence of the pathogen but presence prior to symptomology and of course then also relates to post-harvest sanitation and and you know the use of concedes going forward for the industry so um in summary um we've developed biosensors to detect both of our type pathogens they're highly specific we're able to discriminate among those two pathogens and I'll also add that there was quite a bit of background bioinformatics work done to make sure that nothing else was going to be picked up um that was genetically closely related to those targets and would occur in a chickpea paddock or a favorbean paddock or a lentry paddock um the highest sensitive so we can detect down to single genomes or spores it's pretty fast using our suitcase kit takes about 45 minutes to get a quantified positive result um it's portable um it's durable so we've shown that those um those those the methods that we use they don't degrade the the um they're they're there and they're present for us to use over and over again in fact you can use the same nanoparticles if you want to wash them off and use them again they're ready to use um it's affordable um and um just depending on numbers that obviously you want to chug through the system it's definitely going to be less than one block it's only proof of salary um and it's reasonably easy easy to use although we're still working on that um so you know I think the results of this research really will help to inform better disease management um on being able to guide biologically and geographically on the use of chemicals uh reducing the excess or unnecessary application of chemicals although that scenario is pretty endogenous and spread throughout systems um hopefully that will then lead to better product returns and reduced environmental impacts and I want to finish up very much by acknowledging the whole team because it's it's not just the people that I'll mention quickly but it you know it's all of the breeders and economists and the growers that that are helping us with the research and making field sites available etc um I want to really thank Shadiki because he's the brains behind the electro-biochemical um biosensor methodology Marcia's the person's done one of the work he knows helped with the bioinformatics side of this Sam is our go-to person for sort of confirming things biologically through his his the biology etc a Jenny in the industry Jeremy is very much helped with supervision and and um the ideas um and there's some references to those two review articles that we've got out so far so and then these sponsors with that exact piece of work so thank you very much for listening and I'll walk up any questions and quickly I can answer them


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