From Plant Biology 2023: The Evolutionary Origin of Acutumine Biosynthesis in Menispermaceae Plants

Interview by Charlay Wood Today, I had the star-struck experience of meeting Prof. Jing-Ke Weng in person! Imagine meeting someone you’ve idolized from the pages of academic journals brought to life right in front of you. It’s like bumping into your favorite movie star, but in the world of plant specialized metabolism. I’ve poured over more … Read more

Deadline Extended! Workshop Proposals for Plant Biology 2023

The plant science community is invited to submit proposals for workshops to be held during Plant Biology 2023.  The deadline for workshop proposal submissions is November 20, 2022. The Program Committee will review the proposals for currency (new and up-to-date information), and their relevance and value to the community. The committee also encourages submissions from … Read more

Deadline Extended! Concurrent Symposium Proposals for Plant Biology 2023

The American Society of Plant Biologists is now accepting proposals for concurrent symposium topics for  Plant Biology 2023. The deadline for concurrent symposium submissions is November 20, 2022. Proposals should span the range of interests of ASPB members, including exciting new scientific developments and interdisciplinary areas, and they should represent the demographics of our memberships.  … Read more

From Plant Biology 2022: Joint Genome Institute Covers the “Single Cell and Spatial Biology Across the Plant Kingdom” Symposium

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI) released the latest episode of its “Genome Insider” podcast, “Better Crops With a Pointillist Approach to Plant Genomics,” featuring speakers from the “Single Cell and Spatial Biology Across the Plant Kingdom” concurrent symposium that took place on Sunday, July 10, at Plant Biology 2022. In … Read more

From Plant Biology 2022: Following the Light

A Brilliant Summary of the “Responses to Light” Symposium By Guadalupe Fernández-Milmanda As explained by the symposium chair, Prof. Andreas Madlung (University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington), summarizing the “Responses to Light” concurrent symposium, presented Sunday, July 10 at Plant Biology 2022, is quite challenging, as, in very simple words, plants use light for many … Read more

From Plant Biology 2022: How Plants Pave the Way for Human Space Exploration

By Stefanie Wege Crop Harvest on the International Space Station “Space research breeds on earth innovation,” stated NASA researcher Dr. Howard Levin during his presentation “Current Capabilities for growing Plants in Space,” the first talk in the concurrent symposium “Plants for Space,” which took place Sunday, July 10, 2022 at Plant Biology 2022. Dr. Levin … Read more

From Plant Biology 2022: Plants vs Insects Session Recap

By Guadalupe Fernández-Milmanda At Plant Biology 2022, a varied group of speakers presented the latest advances from one of the oldest wars that takes place in our world: Plants versus insects, during the “Plants Versus Insects” concurrent symposium on Tuesday, July 12, 2022. Attendees heard news from multiple front lines: cotton, cowpea, and Arabidopsis, and … Read more

From Plant Biology 2022: Creating an Inspiring Scientific Environment to Discuss Climate-Smart Agriculture

Highlights of the ASPB African Researchers Network Workshop and Hackathon   By Sessen Daniel Iohannes and Modesta Abugu Current agricultural ecosystems are threatened by ongoing climate change and weather extremes that affect crop production, biodiversity, and dynamics of pests and diseases. We need to rethink how we do agriculture to bridge the gap between productivity, … Read more

From Plant Biology 2022: Tangled Up In Plant Immunity at the CSPB/SCBV President’s Plenary ‘Interacting and Tangled Plant Immune Pathways’

By Sarah Courbier, PhD Each year, 10% to 30% of crops are lost to pathogens and pests worldwide, and these losses are only increasing with climate change. To maintain food security, it is crucial to fully understand how plants detect and respond to pathogen infections. Pioneering work from Jones and Dangl (2006) have shed light … Read more

Congratulations to ASPB’s 2022 Award Recipients

ASPB is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2022 awards, which honor distinction in service, outreach, education, and research.   Adolph E. Gude Jr. Award Beronda Montgomery, Michigan State University   Charles Albert Shull Award Lucia Strader, Duke University   Charles Reid Barnes Life Membership Award Peggy Lemaux, University of California, Berkley   Charles … Read more

Strategies for Writing Better Abstracts Webinar Recording

Current and former members of the ASPB Program and Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion committees shared their insights on what makes an abstract compelling and engaging and how to appeal to the broad audience expected at Plant Biology 2022, taking place in Portland, Oregon, July 9­–13. The goal of the webinar was to encourage and assist researchers across the … Read more

Harnessing the Potential of Genome Editing for Tomorrow’s Agriculture

The fourth day of the Plant Biology Worldwide submit was introduced by Asia Hightower, a PhD student at Michigan State University who is also the Early Career Representative on the ASPB Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) committee. Asia relayed how becoming involved in ASPB provided many opportunities to build her network and gave her access to … Read more

Snapshots from Plant Biology 2020: Plant Reproduction

It’s been more than a month since the successful completion of the Plant Biology 2020 (PB20) Worldwide Summit hosted by the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB). But those who got to attend it certainly will not have come out of its daze yet. The conference, held for a good five days, came to the … Read more

Watch and Learn: Applying Machine Learning to Plant Biology Problems

Workshop recap from How Machine Learning Can Be Used to Solve Plant Biology Problems at Plant Biology 2020 Worldwide Summit We live in a time of substantial technological innovation. Developments such as next-generation sequencing and high-throughput phenotyping mean that the rate at which data is generated is immense. In modern interdisciplinary biology, we frequently hear … Read more

Presenting Posters in a Pandemic – virtual experiences at Plant Biology 2020

Written by Caroline Dowling and Modesta Abugu. Caroline Dowling (@CarolineD0wling) is a Plantae Fellow and a PhD candidate at University College Dublin in Ireland, researching hemp flowering, development, and genomics. Modesta Abugu (@modestannedi) is an ASPB Conviron Scholar and a master’s student at the University of Florida researching flavor improvement in modern tomatoes.  As graduate students, poster presentations are … Read more

Listen and learn – Workshop recaps from Allies 101: LGBTQ+ and Inclusive pedagogy at Plant Biology Worldwide Summit

It was the last day of the Plant Biology Worldwide Summit, and the rainy Friday morning made me nostalgic. I started to reflect on my various interactions with ASPB. The first Plantae webinar I attended was called “How to be an effective mentor,” and I liked it so much that I wrote a blog post … Read more

Dissecting epigenetic inheritance mechanisms and reprogramming in plants

Plenary session II: Epigenetic inheritance and reprogramming in plants at ASPB Worldwide Summit 2020 Following an exciting first day at the plant biology worldwide summit, over 800 attendees participated at the plenary session II which answered questions on the mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance and reprogramming in plants.  Rob Martienssen while introducing the session, noted that although there has … Read more

A call for improved science advocacy

Plenary Symposium III: Navigating science policy through effective advocacy for science The plenary session on Navigating Science Policy through effective science advocacy for Science was held on Monday, June 20, 2020, from 10am – 12.30pm. Wayne Parrot welcomed participants to the event and  Nathan Springer introduced the session and the speakers. Attended by over 100 participants this session captured the need for scientists … Read more

Single-cell assays shed light on decisive factors of development

Plenary Symposium I: Defining the Phenotype: Robustness, Resilience, and Stochastic Processes in Cellular Behavior at ASPB Worldwide Summit After months of anticipation, the Plant Biology Worldwide Summit is finally kicking off. The current ASPB president Judy Callis welcomed participants from over 40 countries around the globe and asked the questions: why do genetically identical individuals have different … Read more