In a world faced with global climate change, a growing population and increasing demand for feed, food and novel fuels, the importance of plant metabolic engineering as a tool for improving agronomic traits, the nutritional value of plant-based foods, for generation of renewable fuels and production of natural products is constantly increasing. This fourth Plant Metabolic Engineering GRC will bring together multidisciplinary investigators from around the world to present and discuss the most recent advances in systems biology, synthetic biology, genetics and -omics approaches to facilitate progress towards robust and predictable metabolic engineering. Fundamental topics to be covered include i) understanding global connectivity and regulation of genetic networks, ii) exploiting synthetic biology for future metabolic engineering, and iii) exploring natural variation to elucidate the plasticity of plant enzymes. This GRC will also highlight new discoveries in the elucidation of plant biochemical pathways, their subcellular localization and intracellular metabolite transport as well as novel approaches for in vivo metabolite detection, metabolic profiling, metabolic flux analysis, mathematical modeling of metabolic networks and conceptualization of rational metabolic engineering strategies. Some short talks will be selected from abstracts submitted as part of the registration process and from poster presentations. Junior scientists, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students will present their work, exchange ideas with global leaders in the field and develop a network of future partners in plant metabolic engineering. The collegial atmosphere of this conference, with programmed discussion sessions and informal gatherings in the afternoons and evenings, will provide a unique forum for interaction of scientists from different disciplines to brainstorm and promote cross-disciplinary collaborations which in turn will drive future advances in system-level plant metabolic engineering.