A major goal of Interactions will be to provide opportunities in particular for our young members to increase their participation and visibility within IS-MPMI. We believe that promoting such participation will have many benefits to their careers. Members just starting out and developing their research program can use Interactions to initiate and foster cooperation and collaboration with others studying similar systems or others who can contribute necessary technical expertise. For those who are searching for a permanent research or teaching position, Interactions will open possibilities to identify compatible career environments and to publish content to demonstrate effective communication of your ideas and opinions. Senior scientists will be able to use Interactions to interact with a broader community of junior scientists and to identify outstanding individuals for possible recruitment into graduate, post-doctoral, or faculty positions.

In order to fulfill our vision and make Interactions a success, we will rely heavily on member participation. We expect the majority of published content to be provided by the IS-MPMI community. Our hope is to make Interactions an accommodating forum for members to share views on “hot topics,” anecdotal stories about research findings published in the MPMI journal, or science-related events within the community. As IS-MPMI is a premier international society, we foresee Interactions as a means to showcase the tremendous diversity within our membership and provide viewpoints on what matters to us most.

If you have ideas for content that you think will be appropriate for publication in Interactions, please contact us by using the online submission form or by e-mail to dennis.halterman@ars.usda.gov. Are publications in Interactions something you can put on your CV? Of course! Interactions publications will not be peer-reviewed articles per se, but they will be reviewed and edited (possibly) by our advisory board and could be listed as trade-journal or outreach-type articles to demonstrate that you have some writing experience outside of typical research journal formats. So, if you would like to get some experience in writing (PIs should encourage students/post-docs to take advantage of this) and have ideas for potential articles, please reach out to us through the online submission form. We would also like to increase the number of senior advisors to Interactions and hope for volunteers, in particular from countries other than the United States in order to broaden our worldwide presence and provide global insights.

Finally, we expect that the content and layout of the Interactions site will be evolving as we determine what works best to effectively communicate content. Please feel free to provide feedback (both positive and critical are welcome), as it will help us to improve Interactions.

Regards,
Dennis Halterman, Interactions Editor-in-Chief
Regine Kahmann, IS-MPMI President

This InterView with Sophien Kamoun, John Innes Centre, was performed by one of the 2016 IS-MPMI student travel awardees, Jixiang Kong, Gregor Mendel Institute.

JIXIANG KONG: What led you to study biology? More specifically plant-pathogen interactions.

SOPHIEN KAMOUN: I grew up with a passion for nature. As a teenager I collected insects and became fascinated by their incredible diversity. Later I took this “hobby” more seriously and I specialized in studying tiger beetles. I even published a few papers on this topic.

After high school in Tunisia, I went to Paris with the firm intention of studying biology and becoming an entomologist. However, I was disappointed by how badly taught zoology was—too much emphasis on taxonomy and little mechanistic thinking. Instead, I became drawn to the more rigorous methods and approaches of molecular biology, and I ended up majoring in genetics. I reconciled this major with my natural history interests by taking multiple modules in evolution and reading a lot on the subject.

Plant pathology came later when I moved from Paris to the University of California-Davis for my Ph.D. The fellowship I received stipulated that I should study plant biology. It wasn’t by choice but rather by accident. But I quickly became engrossed in molecular plant pathology and I really liked that this science involves interactions between multiple organisms. However, for many years I missed a direct connection between the lab work and the field.

JK: If you would not have chosen the topic of plant-pathogen interactions, what would you choose?

SK: Definitely, entomology. I’m still fascinated by insects, especially beetles. I feel we know so little about their biology, especially from a mechanistic angle. They are so diverse and yet most insect research focuses on a few species, such as Drosophila. There are so many fascinating questions, for example, about the evolution of insect behavior and the underlying genes. Also, insects can be important crop pests and disease vectors. This is a very fertile area of research that I highly recommend to early career scientists.

JK: How do you envision large-scale “omics” approaches in studying plant immunity?

SK: Omics are just another tool. They’re powerful tools but they’re still methods we use to answer questions. I advise everyone to frame their research based on questions and then look for the best methods to answer these questions.

This said, genomics has transformed biology in a fundamental way. It’s a new way of doing business. We now have catalogs of plant and pathogen genes, so the challenge is to link genes to function rather than discovering the genes per se. Another key aspect is that genomics is a great equalizer. Model systems are less important than in earlier days. One can make a lot of progress with a genome and a few functional assays. For example, consider the progress made in discovering effectors in obligate parasites. This would have been almost unthinkable in the pre-genomics age. This is why I wish to see more early career scientists explore the diversity of pathogen systems rather than working on established model systems.

JK: Social media is changing the way of communication rapidly. However, the scientific communication on social media is just emerging. How do you see the direction of social media in the future regarding the impact on science? Will social media replace or minimize some conventional communication such as conferences?

SK: Communication is an essential function of being a scientist. We’re not only in the business of producing new knowledge but it’s also our obligation to communicate knowledge to our peers and the public. These days social media became a major medium for communication in science. It’s an efficient way to filter through the incessant flow of information, stay up to date, and broadly broadcast new knowledge. It also enables us to expand our network way beyond traditional colleagues. I interact on Twitter with teachers, farmers, journalists, etc. I also use it, of course, to communicate with colleagues and share information and insights. I also find Twitter immensely entertaining. Scientists have a lot of humor.

I don’t think social media will replace the need for direct contact and interaction between peers. I think we still would want to break off our daily routine and meet in person with colleagues. However, I wish we could start rethinking the format of scientific conferences. Both the fairly detailed oral presentations and poster sessions could be improved if they were combined with some sort of Internet interaction. Twitter is already transforming how scientists interact at conferences but we could do better.

JK: What advice would you provide to young researchers who are in their early scientific career?

SK: Don’t follow the herd. Take chances. Look beyond the current trends both in terms of experimental systems and questions, and ask provocative questions.

By Dennis Halterman, Interactions Editor-in-Chief

If you’re like me, you have a Twitter account but you only use it once in a while. Or maybe you’ve heard about using social media to communicate your science but haven’t yet taken the leap. Setting up work-related social media accounts is relatively easy and, once you have an account set up, you’ll find a wealth of information shared by your fellow scientists (so much, in fact, that it’s difficult to keep up with everything). One aspect of communicating science among fellow scientists is to share recent papers or other news items that you find interesting. I’ve personally noticed several IS-MPMI members use a tool called “Scoop.it” (www.scoop.it) to organize and share recent papers related to their research. In this article, I’ll describe how to get started setting up and using your own Scoop.it account.

What is Scoop.it?
Basically, it’s a way to publish content that you want to share with others. Scoop.it helps you acquire content and then share it via social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). The purpose of using Scoop.it in our community is primarily to share research articles, but the site is also used by many different disciplines.

Step one: Sign up. Visit the Scoop.it website and set up an account.

Step two: Create a topic. On your dashboard screen (click on your name in the upper right corner and select ‘My Dashboard’), you will have the option to “Create a Topic.” This topic will be curated by you. It helps to choose a topic name that will have general interest, but you can change it later, if needed. Some topics curated by other IS-MPMI members are Plants and Microbes (Kamoun Lab); Plant Pathogenic Fungi (Steve Marek); MycorWeb Plant-Microbe Interactions (Francis Martin); Plant-Microbe Symbiosis (Jean-Michel Ané); TAL Effector Science (Sebastian Schornack); and several others.

Click on “Create a Topic” and name your topic. You have the option to have your topic hidden (only visible to you) or not. Since the purpose of this is to share your content with others, you’ll likely leave this box unchecked. With the free version, you can only choose one topic to curate. You can, of course, pay to upgrade your account, which will allow you to curate more topics. Or, you can unlock features using points earned by becoming more active in your curation, inviting friends, etc.

Step three: Start curating. You can find suggested content by adding keywords, but I found this to be somewhat cumbersome. If you pick general terms like “potato” or “plants,” you’re going to find a lot of junk suggestions. But you can filter the suggestions to just “Articles,” if you want. If you’re looking to scoop research articles, you can add the journal name to the keywords.

When you find content that you’d like to scoop through the keyword search, you can click on the “Scoop.it” button. Here, you’re offered the opportunity to distribute your scoop via social media. On the right-hand side of this window, you can choose a photo to accompany your scoop and the layout of the scoop. In some cases, the photo options are limited, so you can upload your own or delete the photo entirely.

Another useful tool is the Scoop.it bookmarklet. This is an invaluable resource that allows you to add content while you’re browsing. Click on your name on the upper right-hand corner of the Scoop.it page to bring up the menu that contains “Bookmarklet.” On this page, you can drag and drop the Scoop.it button to your bookmark toolbar in your browser window. When you’re browsing articles and find one that you’d like to curate, you can simply click on the Scoop.it bookmarklet and it will format the content for you.

Step four: Follow other curated topics. Have other interests other than your curated topic? Of course you do. If you’d like to follow other people’s topics, go to the search window at the top of the page and search for topics or users inside Scoop.it. You can search for people you know are active Scoop.it users or search for a topic like “Plants and Microbes.” This will bring up scoops related to this topic. If you click on the topic (under the name of the person who scooped the content), you’ll have a chance to “follow” this topic by clicking the box in the upper left corner of the page. Now, back on your dashboard page, you can select “My Followed Topics” to find all of these pages. (Scoop.it autofills some topics. If you’d like to remove them, you can click on the topic and select “unfollow.”)

That’s it! You’re on you’re way to becoming a social media guru and making yourself (and your research) more visible to the community. When you come across content that you’d like to share, simply click on the Scoop.it bookmark button. Or visit other curated pages on topics of interest and “rescoop” content that also fits with your topic of interest.

As part of the new IS-MPMI Interactions, we would like to include photos of you doing what you do best—science.  Send a photo that best represents your research with a short caption to dennis.halterman@ars.usda.gov, and we will include it in the InterMurals section of Interactions.

Oliver Ellingham, University of Reading, identifying powdery mildew fungus growing on apple trees. Using newly identified molecular markers Oliver has improved the identification accuracy of hundreds of powdery mildew species.

This fully open-access paper provides an outline and an accounting of the discussions between Richard W. Michelmore, University of California, Davis; MPMI Editor-in-Chief John M. McDowell; and nearly 40 other researchers at the British Embassy in Washington, DC, in late 2016.

Members are encouraged to view the whitepaper and extend this engaging conversation about the many challenges and solutions for maintaining the quality and productivity of crops to secure food for the rapidly growing human population.

MPMI and the participants invite reader comments about this paper. Visit apsjournals.apsnet.org/page/MPMI-01-17-0010-CR to become part of this important and timely discussion.

Lysøe and colleagues use transcriptomics to examine the mechanisms through which a biocontrol agent (Clonostachys rosea) limits the severity of a postharvest fungal disease of potato, caused by Helminthosporium solani. Their analysis suggests a complex mode of action, involving activation of host immunity, competition, and mycoparasitism.

This InterView with Pamela C. Ronald, University of California, was performed by one of the 2016 IS-MPMI student travel awardees, Gazala Ameen, North Dakota State University.

Gazala Ameen (GA): Dr. Ronald, your work and efforts to connect lab to land is a role model for many budding scientists. What is the inspiration and driving force behind you to be a wonderful scientist and strong advocate for plant science?

Pamela Ronald (PR): I have always been interested in food, farming, and the wilderness. My dad built a 500-ft² cabin, about 60 years ago before I was born in Tahoe. I spend a lot of time as a kid backpacking in the Sierra Nevada mountains identifying flowers and trees. I loved to walk for days and camp out under the stars. My mother was an avid gardener and a really good cook. So, I was always interested in food and farming.

GA: In your opinion, how do you think your work is filling the knowledge gap and leading the progression of scientific community?

PR: Most scientists hope that some of the work we do will be useful to other scientists and, if we are lucky, directly applicable to farmers in our lifetime. I feel that I have been very fortunate to have a really good lab team and wonderful collaborators and we have done some exciting work. I hope that many of the scientists I have mentored will continue with the work. I believe that any scientific advance, no matter how small, can help make the world a better place.

GA: How do you think people can become more educated about GM crops and their role in feeding our growing world population, especially those who are deprived of the basic human right of food? How can we educate the general public about it?

PR: Well, the issue is less about genetics and more about agriculture. Very few people in the United States are farmers and very few people even hear from farmers. I am often invited to join panel discussion about food and farming. Typically, there is not a single farmer on the panel. So, I think that if we could engage farmers in the conversations and discussions with consumers, it will really help a lot. For example, I think if you are a plant biologist, you understand what a seed is and that you need a seed to make a plant and that seeds have genes that encode traits that farmers need and consumers need. But that’s not so obvious to a lot of people who are not plant biologists or farmers. I believe we need to start plant biology education early—we need to help high school teachers teach their students about genetics and breeding. If there is a basic knowledge about plant breeding and the challenges faced by farmers, it will be easier for the consumers to understand that there are many different methods of genetic alterations and that we need to be thinking not about the type of genetics but how can we advance to sustainable agriculture. How can we help farmers produce enough food to feed themselves and their family and how can we help farmers farm more ecologically? How can we help reduce inputs and allow farmers to use less land and less water? Of course, it is not all about plant genetics, farmers need much more than seeds. Farmers need to use ecologically based farming practices, they need to have access to water and land, and there needs to be good government policies. It’s an interrelated system. Once we engage in dialog about sustainable agriculture, it really helps consumers think about plant genetics. Let me give you a specific example. I am opposed to the term “GMO” because it means something different to each person. And of course, everything we eat has been genetically altered in some manner. So, what I would like to see is more discussions specific to the agricultural challenge. For instance, Papaya ringspot virus infects papaya in Hawaii, which devastates the orchard and is a huge economic hardship to growers. What approaches can help farmers keep growing their crops? In this case, genetically engineered papaya to create immune papaya has worked well for more than 10 years.

GA: What are your feelings toward the future of basic scientific research, especially in the current scenario of limited research funding?

PR: There are always ups and downs. I think that most politicians will say that they support science and that they recognize that scientific research is critical for the American economy and the global economy (even if their actions don’t always reflect that). So, I am encouraged that we do have that kind of political support, but of course, it needs to get translated into actions and support to young scientists and funding to help do the research. As scientists, we need to keep advocating for good science and engaging about science with as many nonscientists as we can. We need to try to understand the kind of issues that they are wondering about and do our best to explain why science is important.

GA: As women remain underrepresented in STEM, how can we take charge to educate more young women, get them involved in STEM, and help them to remain motivated?

PR: For women in particular?

GA: Yeah!

PR: For all of us, men and women alike, science is challenging. It is hard and you have many failures. It’s important to remember that failures are a normal part of science and help and support each other during hard times. Choose to work with people that you enjoy and trust. Support them as they support you. Be generous and kind. Share your data before publication. I don’t want to generalize too much, but it may be that there are more women than men who lack confidence in their skills and suffer from imposter syndrome. Of course, I know men who feel that way too, but it does seem to be more common in women. I hope that, once we reach a point where there are similar numbers of men and women in STEM fields, many of the challenges women now face will diminish (lack of respect, etc.) (For a great twitter story on this see: https://twitter.com/schneidremarks/status/839910253680553988?lang=en). For both men and women, having children is challenging because you love them and you love science and you want to do the best for both. But this is the case for most jobs. The good thing about science is that there is flexibility and understanding. This allows scientists who are parents to arrange their schedule so that family life will work well.

— By Sophien Kamoun with contributions from LFCats

On a cloudy Norwich day in 2011, post-docs Sebastian Schornack, Sylvain Raffaele, and Tolga Bozkurt were having a typical British lunch of fish and chips with mushy peas with their supervisor Sophien Kamoun. Somehow, the discussion turned to the importance of sustained productivity. Kamoun, in his usual hyperbolic style, pointed out that now that each one of them had just published notable papers (Schornack et al., 2010; Raffaele et al., 2010; Bozkurt et al., 2011), they should beware of not behaving like “lazy fat cats” and think hard about their next papers. Not everyone left the lunch in the happiest mood. One day later, after discussion with another post-doc, Mireille van Damme, Schornack and colleagues decided to found the Lazy Fat Cat Club (#LFCats). Schornack drafted a chart and was appointed as Chairman Féi māo (fat cat in Mandarin). The #LFCats ethos is that productive research requires a significant amount of communication and knowledge exchange, and informally discussing research is a perfect way of solving roadblocks and laying paths for the future. Casual meetings took place on a regular basis at The Sainsbury Laboratory, mainly on afternoon coffee breaks. The club continued to loosely grow and several other researchers joined the #LFCats. As the members moved on to start their own labs, the #LFCats “brand” helped nurture a lasting bond. Suomeng Dong, now a professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at Nanjing Agricultural University, coined the Chinese proverb “Fat cats cannot jump over the wall” to challenge the #LFCats to work collaboratively to solve problems and “jump over the wall.”

This year’s Annual Meeting of The American Phytopathological Society was held in San Antonio, TX, on August 5–9.

As someone whose research program is based primarily on studying molecular plant-microbe interactions, I have always found that the science presented at the APS Annual Meeting is more focused on the applied aspects of plant pathology and that the basic research kind of takes a backseat. However, there were many MPMI-focused talks and sessions, including a Special Session on “New Insights into NLR on Plant Immunity.” I have included some of the meeting highlights, including APS awards to four IS-MPMI members.

The meeting began with an Opening Plenary Session led by Jack Bobo, senior vice president and chief communications officer for Intrexon (subsidiaries include Arctic apple, AquAdvantage salmon, Oxitec sterile mosquitoes). His talk, entitled “Can Agriculture Save the Planet Before It Destroys It?,” started with a live tweet of the audience cheering “Go plant health!” He followed with a discussion of global trends in food and agriculture, with a take-home message that we need to get to year 2050 without destroying the environment through agriculture (deforestation, draining aquifers). After this date, population growth will slow dramatically and productivity gains will allow us to reduce the global footprint of agriculture. Beyond 2050, he predicts that “for the first time in human history, we will not need more food.” He concluded his talk with something that stuck in my mind: “The next 35 years are not just the most important 35 years there have ever been in the history of agriculture, they’re the most important 35 years there will ever be in the history of agriculture.”

A mid-meeting Plenary Session, entitled “Changing Landscapes in Plant Pathology,” featured three early career scientists using new technologies that impact our science. This session included presenters Greg Heck, science strategy operations manager at Monsanto, who spoke on “RNA-Based Applications for Agricultural Productivity”; Erica Goss, University of Florida, who spoke on “Global Movement, Local Consequences: Using Population Genomics to Understand the Changing Landscape of Plant Pathogens”; and Lav Khot, from Washington State University, who spoke on “State-of-the-Art on Sensing Technologies for Plant Disease Detection.” Recordings of Bobo and the other plenary speakers are available online.

The Closing Session speaker was Jeff Hurt, executive vice president of Velvet Chainsaw Consulting, with a talk entitled “Making the Science of Plant Pathology Work for You: What Now? What’s Next?” His talk was focused on tools and resources to help us summarize our meeting experience and identify actionable items that we can use to impact our own research.

One of the most welcome trends I saw at the meeting was a focus on communicating our science with the public. A networking event led by the APS Office of Public Relations and Outreach trained attendees on developing their own Pitch120—a 120-second summary of their research projects that could be understood by both scientists and nonscientists. Jim Bradeen, University of Minnesota, led a session entitled “Science as Story and Story as Science: Telling Plant Pathology Research Stories.” Another session, entitled “Navigating Contentious Conversations,” was led by Paul Vincelli, University of Kentucky, and focused on engaging the public on controversial topics (GMOs, fungicide usage).

Many of the presentations at the meeting were recorded and can be purchased and viewed online.

APS members are looking forward to next year’s International Congress of Plant Pathology: Plant Health in a Global Economy, which will be held in Boston, MA, from July 29 to August 3, 2018. More information and a preliminary list of plenary and keynote talks is available at the meeting website.

Four IS-MPMI members were recognized at the meeting for their outstanding contributions to the study of plant-pathogen interactions. Thomas Baum, Iowa State University; Andrew Bent, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Yong-Hwan Lee, Seoul National University, were named APS Fellows. APS Fellow recognition is based on significant contributions in one or more of the following areas: original research, teaching, administration, professional and public service, and/or extension and outreach.

Hailing Jin, University of California-Riverside, was given the Ruth Allen Award, which honors individuals who have made an outstanding, innovative research contribution that has changed, or has the potential to change, the direction of research in any field of plant pathology.

Each of the awardees was asked to provide their perspective on their award and provide insights/advice for aspiring young scientists. Read the interviews in this issue of Interactions.