Dr. Bob Goldberg is well known for his research contributions to plant biology, particularly in the area of reproductive development. He has generated fundamental discoveries that have also resulted in applications in industry, such as the development of the Barnase-Barstar male sterility system together with PGS in Belgium. Bob later served as cofounder and director … Read more
Dr. Craig Pikaard, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Indiana University, Bloomington, is honored for his seminal work and important discoveries in the fields of nucleolar dominance, gene silencing, and the role and function of the atypical polymerases IV and V. Craig will convene the Martin Gibbs Medal Symposium at Plant Biology 2016. The Martin Gibbs Medal, … Read more
Dr. Caren Chang is well known for her pioneering work in ethylene signaling, and she has continued to contribute significantly in this area by elucidating signaling mechanisms and physical connections among the different players in the ethylene-signaling pathway. By helping to fill major long-standing gaps in the pathway, Caren’s work has provided new advances in … Read more
The 2015 Excellence in Education Award acknowledges the outstanding contributions of Dr. Stanley Roux. During a career spanning more than thirty years, Stan has made a considerable impact at his institution by expanding the curriculum while developing and adopting innovative pedagogical methods. Both in the classroom and in his laboratory, Stan has emphasized meaningful hands … Read more
Dr. Joe Louis is recognized for his significant contributions to the field of plant insect interactions, as well as for his demonstrated excellence in outreach, public service, mentoring and teaching. Joe’s research work has shown that specific elicitors delivered by insects are recognized by plants to induce innate defense mechanisms. His research publications are in … Read more
Corresponding Member status is conferred by election on the annual ASPB ballot. This honor, initially given in 1932, provides life membership and Society publications to distinguished plant biologists outside the United States. Renate Scheibe, University of Osnabrueck, Germany Renate Scheibe is a leading contributor to our understanding of redox regulation in plants, extending from metabolic … Read more
The Early Career Award acknowledges outstanding research by a scientist generally not more than seven years post-Ph.D. This year’s Early Career Award recipient is Dr. Daniel Chitwood, who is recognized for his extraordinary contributions to the systems analysis of large, diverse and complex data sets that encompass morphological and 3 molecular traits. The methods that … Read more
Dr. Maria Harrison, Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Science, has pioneered studies of phosphate acquisition in arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbioses using the model legume Medicago truncatula. In particular, her findings that phosphate transport is linked to maintenance of symbiosis and that plants use classic hormone signaling pathways for regulation of the AM symbiosis have ushered … Read more
Wendy F. Boss, North Carolina State University, Raleigh This year’s Charles Reid Barnes Life Membership Award for lifelong service in plant biology goes to Wendy F. Boss. Wendy is recognized for her trailblazing three decades of work in the particularly challenging fields of phosphoinositide biochemistry and inositol phosphate signaling pathways; for her outstanding roles in … Read more
Cyril Zipfel, who heads The Sainsbury Laboratory, is the 2015 recipient of the Charles Albert Shull Award. Cyril played a leading role in the discovery of pattern-triggered immunity in plants, including the characterization of the bacterial peptides flagellin (flg22) and EF-Tu (elf18) as pattern-associated molecular markers that activate signaling by the receptor-like kinases FLS2 and … Read more
The inaugural 2015 ASPB Innovation Prize for Agricultural Technology is awarded jointly to Sherri Brown, David Fischhoff, Mike Koziel, and Fred Perlak. Their leadership of pioneering research and development teams led to the engineering of commercially viable varieties of cotton and corn that express derivatives of insecticidal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis. The insect-resistant crops that … Read more
Including workshops on metabolomics and CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing Human population growth and climate change present major challenges to sustainable food production. Plant biologists are developing and applying new integrative Big Data approaches to address these challenges. This symposium, “Plant Stress-Omics in a Changing Climate”, will bring together scientists who are working at various –omics levels … Read more
As part of the iConnect team, I had the good fortune to go to several workshops during the conference Plant Biology 2014 organized by the American Society of Plant Biologists. ASPB offers a diverse set of venues to acquire new skills and improve our careers by encouraging networking and initiation of collaborations. This year, … Read more
Looking back, we can all agree that it was a fantastic conference in Portland, full of exciting talks, eye-catching posters, motivated scientists, stimulating workshops, committee meetings, etc. So foremost, Thank You to the organizers, to all who came out to Portland, a special Thank You to the iConnect Team, and of course to the sponsors, … Read more
I was eagerly waiting to write a post on this topic. This workshop attracted a lot of conference attendees, since current day plant biology research cannot move forward without these resources. Unfortunately it was kind of an effort to pack too many eggs in one basket within a limited time which could not meet expectations … Read more
PUI=a category within academia, RUI=a category of NSF grants, phooey=what we say when realizing a session already started. The Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUI) Networking Event had a great turnout and fruitful discussion Saturday morning. This event is the opportunity for faculty from institutions that award no (or few) PhDs in the sciences to connect and share ideas for maintaining … Read more
Today was a day for personal connections and actually getting an opportunity to see some science talks. The day began with the second in series of sessions on the challenges of feeding 9 Billion people, with a focus on not just feeding, but nourishing them successfully. David Jenkins, Alan De Brauw, and Ricardo Uauy all … Read more
Again, it’s late and I’m tired, so stream of conscious kind of writing that’s quick is happening tonight. I may even be more tired. Today at the conference there were two major symposia, one on synthetic biology (making drugs from plant processes/engineering cheaper ways to make medicines) and the first in a series of 2: … Read more
One cannot imagine anything more exciting than a food security session where science meets one of the greatest challenges in human history, feeding the world, now and in the future. Today’s session (Symposium III—21st Century Challenge: Feeding 9 Billion) commenced with a great introductory talk by UK Champion for Global Food Security, Professor Tim Benton. … Read more
The first day of the ASPB meeting, 2014 included the major symposium on abiotic stress control in plants, presenting insights on the broad range of abiotic stress that impacts plants from extreme atmospheric conditions and availability of micronutrients; with discussions on recent experimental approaches in laboratory and fields to overcome those hurdles. Dr. Michael F. … Read more
