Yi Li, Peking University​

The 2019 annual meeting of Plant Virology and Plant-Pathogen Interaction Committee, Chinese Society for Plant Pathology (CSPP) was held in Guangzhou on Oct 8-12, 2020. This meeting was co-organized by the Plant Virology and Plant-Pathogen Interaction Committee and South China Agriculture University. The theme of the 2019 annual meeting was Plant Viruses In Natural Environment. At this meeting, we aimed to foster multiple layers of interactions in plant pathology. The conference brought together students, postdocs, and PIs working at different levels of inquiry both from basic research of MPMI and also from applied aspects of plant pathology. More than 380 scientists from China, USA, Canada, Singapore, and Germany attended the symposium.

The meeting began with an opening plenary speaker S. P. Dinesh-Kumar, UC Davis. His talk entitled Emerging Perspectives On Innate Immune Signaling started with the first identified plant resistance gene N gene which could confer immunity against Tobacco mosaic virus. Second opening plenary talk given by Jianmin Zhou, Chinese Academy of Sciences, who led Chinese scientist groups to make breakthrough discoveries in solving pentangular plant inflammasome. He followed with a discussion of global MPMI research trends in plant immunity, with a future outstanding question of whether we can engineer new resistance with the assistance of structure.

The plenary session was led by Jeanne Harris (seen at right), Professor at University of Vermont, and Editor-in-Chief of MPMI. Her talk entitled The Top 10 Unanswered Questions In Molecular Plant-microbe Interactions featured the most important outstanding scientific questions within the MPMI international research community. The chief editor of MPMI also chaired the poster prize awarding ceremony. Poster prize winners and young scientists discussed the topic of Frontiers of Biotic Interactions and Career Development of Young Scientists with Harris.

The closing summary speaker was the chair of this meeting. Yi Li, Peking University, China. He summarized our meeting experience and identified actionable items that we can use to impact our own research. He also encouraged more academic exchanges between China and the worldwide community, which would greatly promote plant virology and MPMI research.