Under the patronage of H.E. George Bouchikian, the Lebanese Minister of Industry, the Saint Joseph University of Beirut (USJ) in partnership with Berytech (Lebanese partner of BESTMEDGRAPE) organized the International Conference of BESTEMDGRAPE project, co-financed by the European Commission through the ENI CBC MED program, on the 11 and 12 of July 2022 in Beirut.

Representatives of the managing authority, the partners, potential entrepreneurs, in addition to scientists, and students participated in the event.

Pr. Richard Maroun, Dean of the faculty of Science at USJ., gave the opening speech where he thanked everyone who helped make this project possible and contributed to its success. He also announced that the BESTMEDGRAPE project, which started 3 years ago, has achieved all its scientific goals. 

Pr. Gianni Bacchetta, coordinator of the BESTMEDGRAPE project, insisted on the importance of the actual contribution made by the project in various fields and the coordination that was carried out to achieve the desired results.

At the end of the first day of the International Conference, an honorary shield was presented to Minister Bouchikian who highlighted the importance of projects like BESTMEDGRAPE.

The second day of the conference included 5 sessions representing the 5 steps of the project. Professors, scientists, and entrepreneurs, each one of them showed the result of his/her work in the project.

Scientists took the stage to explain the process of extracting the grape by-products from different lands and grape varieties and then transforming them via nanotechnology into new products like cosmeceuticals and nutraceuticals products. Specialists in business creation explained how these ideas and products were the base to create new start-ups, and potential entrepreneurs presented their products obtained from this process, and shared their experience in the project, on stage.

More results were shown in a series of posters, where students and professors presented their ideas about the valorization of grape by-products. In the end, Louna Altrjman from Jordan and Rimane Aziz from Lebanon won trophies for best poster, based on a public vote.