I feel so humbled to serve as the president of the International Society for Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions (IS-MPMI) for the next two years. IS-MPMI has been my professional home for more than 25 years, during which I have learned so much from so many of you who inspire me to be a good scientist and a sincere colleague. I would like to thank the previous IS-MPMI presidents and Board of Directors (BOD), including immediate Past President Sophien Kamoun, for all they have done to make IS-MPMI a vibrant and attractive society for colleagues from more than 30 countries who study the molecular aspects of plant-microbe interactions. Knowing my limited ability, I will work very hard and very closely with the current members of the IS-MPMI BOD to ensure an exciting congress in 2016, a strong society flagship journal (MPMI), and dynamic communication/networking venues through the society website and IS-MPMI Reporter.
The biennial IS-MPMI congresses are special to us because they bring us together to share exciting results, exchange new ideas, and catch up with new and old friends. The XVI IC-MPMI, held on the beautiful island of Rhodes, Greece, was no exception in this respect. With approximately 1,200 attendees (the largest in IS-MPMI history), the congress featured exciting and expansive science, marking another wave of progress in the understanding of diverse plant-pathogen, plant-symbiont, and plant-commensal interactions. Although the topics of immune/symbiosis signaling and effector biology dominated the congress, it was great to see substantial coverage of plant-microbiome interactions, translational research toward disease control and diagnosis, and new insights on plant-pathogen battles over the gene silencing machinery. The XVI IC-MPMI was a great success in terms of the science presented and the networking opportunities provided for the attendees, despite a number of logistic problems (the BOD is taking steps to clarify these problems). A unique highlight of the congress in Rhodes, thanks to the leadership of BOD members Roger Innes and Mary Beth Mudgett, was the involvement of 57 student travel awardees, who actively summarized and disseminated meeting presentations by multimedia during the congress (see the IS-MPMI website). More than 400 students attended the congress, displaying the uplifting youthfulness of our society on the 30th anniversary of the cloning of a pathogen avirulence gene and the 20th anniversary of the cloning of disease resistance genes.
The next IS-MPMI congress will be held in Portland, Oregon, United States, in 2016. Normally, we would have an IS-MPMI congress in 2018, but because the 11th International Congress of Plant Pathology has already been scheduled in 2018 (Boston, U.S.A.), the BOD decided to postpone the following IS-MPMI congress until 2019 (to be held in Glasgow, Scotland). To ensure that IS-MPMI congresses deliver not only exciting science, but also high-quality services, the local organizing committees led by Brett Tyler (Portland) and Paul Birch (Glasgow) will work closely with the BODs in the organization of these congresses, and a professional team at IS-MPMI Headquarters will be involved in handling the logistics for both congresses.
As you know, the society journal MPMI provides a central portal for publishing cutting-edge results from molecular studies of plant-microbe interactions. Editor-in-Chief Jane Glazebrook, senior editors, and members of the Editorial Board have done an exemplary job so far and are implementing innovative approaches (including Focus Issues) to improve both the attractiveness of MPMI and the rapid dissemination of accepted manuscripts via the First Look section. A new Focus Issue, entitled “The Good, the Bad, and the Unknown: Genomics-Enabled Discovery of Plant-Associated Microbial Processes and Diversity,” is planned for March 2015. This Focus Issue will be widely promoted and is expected to be highly cited, giving authors maximum exposure. With the creation of our new society website and under the leadership of Brad Day, IS-MPMI Reporter will be converted to an online format only. The new format will utilize the features of the new IS-MPMI website via an online platform and feed new information directly to the homepage and social media. The print version of IS-MPMI Reporter will be discontinued after this issue. We hope that the new IS-MPMI Reporter concept will make communication and networking in the IS-MPMI community more dynamic and time sensitive.
I would like to end my first letter to you with a brief reflection on the XVI IC-MPMI. I heard many interesting talks during the congress, including two memorable award talks: the Opening Lecture by Fred Ausubel, introduced by his former post-doc Jonathan Jones, and one of the final Plenary Talks by Nick Panopolous, introduced by his former student Brian Staskawicz. Fred and Nick are among the pioneers who have created new frontiers of research in MPMI. Looking ahead, there are many plant-microbe interactions in nature that await us to explore. With many cutting-edge toolkits that were unthinkable even a few years ago, this is truly an exciting time for the IS-MPMI community to break new ground and to translate fundamental knowledge to solve major problems in agriculture. I wish you good luck in your research and look forward to h aring fascinating stories from you in Portland, Oregon, in 2016.