By Brett Tyler, Oregon State University
On July 17-21, 2016, Portland, Oregon, the “City of Roses” at the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette rivers, will host the XVII International Congress on Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions. The meeting will be held at the Oregon Convention Center, across the river from downtown Portland and connected by light rail to downtown and the airport.
The Local Scientific Committee has been hard at work developing the program and incorporating lots of suggestions from the IS-MPMI Board and from attendees at past meetings. The 2016 meeting will offer a streamlined program with lots of time for networking, posters, and recreation. There will be seven plenary sessions, nine sets of three concurrent sessions, and three poster sessions. There is also time on Sunday, July 17, for special sessions. Contact Brett Tyler if you wish to host a special session.
The plenary and concurrent sessions will highlight the latest advances in fundamental research. Some examples are RNA-mediated interactions; epigenetic variation in microbes and hosts; epigenomics; tritrophic interactions and the microbiome; population genomics; mechanisms of plant immunity; cell wall and apoplastic interactions; mechanisms of symbiosis and mutualism; and interkingdom signaling. Also covered are translational studies critical for advancements in agricultural science, such as
novel approaches for disease control; breakthrough technologies for engineering staple food crops; and successes and needs in the developing world.
Travel awards will be available to assist the participation of students and post-doctoral scholars. Awardees will work together in teams with established scientists throughout the meeting to critically discuss the research presented. In addition, the awardees will contribute to the dissemination of key findings from the meeting by releasing daily meeting highlights via social networking and publishing a final congress report.
Watch for updates on the conference website and by following @ICMPMI2016 on Twitter.
The members of the Local Scientific Committee are:
- Brett Tyler (chair), Oregon State University
- Barbara Baker, USDA-ARS Albany
- Andrew Bent, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Jeff Chang, Oregon State University
- Lynda Ciuffetti, Oregon State University
- Shouwei Ding, University of California, Riverside
- Valerian Dolja, Oregon State University
- Nik Grunwald, USDA-ARS Corvallis
- Maria Harrison, Cornell University
- Ann Hirsch, University of California, Los Angeles
- Jan Leach, Colorado State University
- Joyce Loper, USDA-ARS Corvallis
- Sharon Long, Stanford University
- Wenbo Ma, University of California, Riverside
- Richard Michelmore, University of California, Davis
- Shauna Somerville, Stanford University
- Brian Staskawicz, University of California, Berkeley
- Guoliang Wang, The Ohio State University
- Valerie Williamson, University of California, Davis
- Mary Wildermuth, University of California, Berkeley
- Tom Wolpert, Oregon State University