2016 Plant Molecular Biology GRC: How Plants Sense, Process, Integrate and Store Information, June 12-16, 2016, Holderness, New Hampshire

Gordon Research Conferences, East Greenwich RI

Investigators

Abstract

This project provides partial support for early career scientists to participate in the Gordon Research Conference on Plant Molecular Biology to be held June 12-17, 2016. The goal of the conference is to disseminate information about plant biology among an interdisciplinary group of researchers, and to increase our collective understanding of basic plant biology and its application to problems of worldwide significance. Many of the topics discussed during the meeting will help direct research aimed at answering big questions such as how can we achieve a reliable, sustainable, equitable, supply of nutritious food for a growing and increasingly urbanized world. The specific aim of this meeting will be to bring together speakers who represent the leading edge of molecular plant biology research, including established leaders in the field and up-and-coming early career researchers. The oral and poster sessions are designed to emphasize discussion and networking, and evaluations from past conferences demonstrate the effectiveness of this format. The meeting will combine topics that underpin this area of research with newly emerging research topics as we attempt to figure out how plants sense, process, integrate and store information. This meeting will accelerate research, particularly in the areas of signal transduction, systems biology, evolution, and plant microbe interactions that directly impact the production of food, fuel and fiber. Given the importance of plant biology and its potential to continue to make groundbreaking discoveries of broad fundamental importance and the large scientific demand for opportunities to communicate and interact, the topics of this meeting are exciting and timely. The specific objectives are to (1) organize and support a meeting on the latest scientific advances in the research area of plant molecular biology (2) promote interactions between scientists and trainees who study plants at the molecular, cellular, organismal and population levels to share new discoveries as they relate to normal growth, development and nutrition and to enhance training and new collaborations that will move the field forward and (3) to directly involve newly independent scientists and trainees including graduate students and postdocs, women, minorities and the disabled in the conference.