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Peptidoglycan-Remodeling Enzyme Critical for Bacteroid Differentiation in Bradyrhizobium spp. During Legume Symbiosis
Gully and colleagues provide an elegant genetic demonstration of the important role played by the bacterial peptidoglycan layer in the symbiosis between Bradyrhizobium and Aeschynomene species of legumes.
Dr. Federico Sánchez was well-known for being a great man with boundless generosity, enthusiastic, entrepreneur, outstanding teacher, husband and father like no other, and an excellent researcher.
Federico started as a teacher at the School of Chemistry UNAM in 1973 and he has since taught in different bachelor, master and Ph.D. programs. In 2003, he was a founding lecturer of the new Undergraduate Program on Genomic Sciences with which he was associated for more than 10 years.
In 1981, Federico started his scientific career when he joined the Center for Research on Nitrogen Fixation at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (CEFINI-UNAM), currently known as Center for Genomic Sciences (CCG-UNAM). Here Federico developed the Department of Plant Molecular Biology. Since then, his scientific work and teaching activities underpinned the consolidation of Plant Molecular Biology in Mexico. This early impact on Mexican academia led him to be awarded the National Award in Plant Biotechnology in 1987.
This XVII Congress held true to its overall theme, “Elevate the Science.” With over 820 abstracts, 7 plenary sessions, 7 special sessions, 48 concurrent sessions, and 3 poster sessions, the Congress was densely packed. More than 950 attendees, including almost 300 students, travelled to Portland, Oregon from 40 different countries. The #MPMI16 tweets poured in as attendees experienced the latest research and advancements in MPMI—visit the IS-MPMI Twitter page at twitter.com/ISMPMI to see what people were saying. Thank you to all attendees, presenters, and organizers who made this year’s congress an extraordinary one.
Following the 2016 IS-MPMI XVII Congress, several awardees were announced. IS-MPMI would like to congratulate the 2016 IS-MPMI Awardee, Sharon Long, a Professor of Biology at Stanford University. She received her Bachelor’s degree from the California Institute of Technology, and carried out her Ph.D. studies at Yale University, studying plant development with Ian Sussex. As a postdoctoral fellow she trained with Fred Ausubel at Harvard, where she began her work on Rhizobium-legume symbiosis. She joined the Stanford faculty in 1982. Her research group employs a spectrum of approaches, including microbial and plant molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics, to study the symbiosis of Rhizobium bacteria and plant hosts. They are especially interested in the signals and signal transduction pathways used by nitrogen-fixing bacteria and plants.
The new IS-MPMI Young Investigator Award for 2016 was given to Dong Wang, a faculty member of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Dr. Wang received his Ph.D. training with Dr. Xinnian Dong at Duke University, and conducted postdoctoral research with Dr. Sharon Long at Stanford University. Currently he studies the symbiotic interactions between plants and beneficial microbes.
IS-MPMI would also like to recognize all of the 2016 Ko Shimamoto Travel Awardees, who received funding to attend the XVII Congress. Congratulations to the following individuals:
Hiroaki Adachi
Kwasi Adusei Fosu
Beverly Agtuca
Akira Akamatsu
Gazala Ameen
Brenden Barco
Teura Barff
Maël Baudin
Ana Bossa-Castro
Maryn Carlson
Meltem Cavdar
Hao-Xun Chang
David Cook
Kevin Cope
Gayani Ekanayake
Laura Fleites
Jose Fonseca
Barbara Franco
Julie Gervais
Mrunmay Kumar Giri
Bruna Goncalves Coutinho
Alex Greenspan
Susanna Harris
Volker Hegenauer
Matthew Helm
Sarah Hind
John Steen Hoyer
Shuai Huang
Carol Ibe
Sergey Ivanov
Anna Joe
Ryan Kessens
Jixiang Kong
Arun Kumar
Thomas Liebrand
Xiaoyu Liu
Chenglong Liu
Fabien Lonjon
Juan Sebastian Lopez Fernández Fondazione
Tiffany Lowe-Power
Yan Ma
Ka-Wai Ma
Paolo Margaria
Alfredo Mari
Margarita Marroquin-Guzman
Kaitlin McNally
Marco Mechan Llontop
Samriti Midha
Mina Ohtsu
Onur Oztas
Yohann Petit
Priya Pimprikar
Sowmya Ramachandran
Jeannette Rapicavoli
Fernanda Raquel Rezende de Castro Moretti
Robyn Roberts
Joren Jeico Cruz Salazar
Benjamin Schwessinger
Aldo Luis Seguel
Joji Grace Sernestrand
Teja Shidore
Martin Stegmann
Tongjun Sun
Marcella Alves Teixeira
Jessie Uehling
Hester Van Schalkwyk
Chih-Hang Wu
Wenjun Xie
Li Zhang
Xiaoxiao Zhang
Poplar–Root-Knot Nematode Interaction: A Model for Perennial Woody Species
Baldacci-Cresp and colleagues describe a new system for studying interactions between root-knot nematodes and trees. Nematodes exercised conserved strategies to reproduce and invade perennial plants, and poplar was identified as a model host for studying traits of tree–nematode interactions.
New IS-MPMI Board members were recently announced during the 2016 IS-MPMI Congress in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. Please welcome the following new members of the Board, and thank you to members continuing to serve their current terms.
The 2016 IS-MPMI XVII Congress was held in Portland, Oregon, from Sunday, July 17, to Thursday, July 21, 2016. We are very pleased and privileged to have hosted one of the largest international congresses encompassing numerous dimensions of molecular plant-microbe interactions and are very grateful to the top world scientists who joined us in Portland.
Scientific highlights of the meeting included new emphases on the microbiome and systems biology, including an expanded focus on mutualism, together with continuing strong contributions in the areas of host resistance and pathogenic mechanisms.
For the XVII Congress, the final turnout was 950+ scientists from 40 countries worldwide. 70 young travel awardees from around the world participated in mentoring and discussions with top-level scientists and speakers throughout the meeting. Over a third of meeting attendees agreed that the highlight of the meeting was networking with other attendees. Many members appreciated the “excellent science,” the “diversity balance” of topics and speakers, the “great networking opportunity,” and the overall response to the meeting concluded that “this congress is the best meeting for researchers working on plant-microbe interactions.”
The scientific program started on Sunday, July 17. Over the week, there were 26 plenary session speakers—attendees were excited to hear from these new scientists as almost 75% of these speakers had not presented in the past two IS-MPMI Congresses. There were also 128 concurrent session speakers, and 31 special session speakers. About half of all speakers came from overseas, including about 34% from Europe and 18% from Asia. A total of 152 different labs were represented in the plenary and concurrent session talks. There were 722 posters displayed during three different poster sessions as well.
