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Oomycete Community Meets by the Sea
Brett M . Tyler , Center for Genome Research and Biocomputing , Oregon State University , and coordinator of the Oomycete Molecular Genetics Research Collaboration Network , Brett . Tyler @ oregonstate . edu
Oomycetes are devastating pathogens of plants of importance to agriculture , horticulture , forests , and natural ecosystems . Some oomycetes are also destructive pathogens of aquatic animals and are increasingly damaging to aquaculture and aquatic ecosystems . Genomic and molecular genetic approaches have propelled oomycetes to the forefront of plant – microbe interaction research over the last 10 years . On March 10-12 , the oomycete molecular genetics community ( Oomycete Molecular Genetics Research Collaboration Network ( OMGN ); pmgn . vbi . vt . edu ) held its annual meeting in Asilomar , California , organized by Mark Gijzen , John McDowell , Paul Morris , and Joel Shuman . With support from the U . S . National Science Foundation , a record 122 researchers attended from 14 countries . Major topics were effectors , genomics , evolution and population genetics , and oomycete biology . Highlights included keynote addresses from
Jeff Dangl and Sarah Grant on the interaction of effectors with Arabidopsis hub proteins ; five talks on the ongoing issue of effector entry mechanisms from the Pieter Van West , Brett Tyler , and Shiv Kale labs ; a report from Wenbo Ma on Phytophthora sojae effectors that suppress RNA silencing ; talks from Richard Michelmore and Kurt Lamour suggesting that the pan genomes of Bremia lactucae and Phytophthora capsici may contain thousands of different RxLR effector genes ; and identification of a longsought gene responsible for mefenoxam resistance in Phytophthora infestans by Steven Whisson . The OMGN meeting has a tradition of open dissemination via social media , especially Twitter , and this meeting generated a record 754 tweets from 10 attendees and 12 nonattendees ( summarized at storify . com / KamounLab # stories ). The 2014 OMGN meeting will be in Norwich , England , on July 3 – 5 . n
IS-MPMI Signs on to Support the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment
In December 2012 , the American Society for Cell Biology ( ASCB ), along with a group of scholarly journal editors and publishers , met in San Francisco to develop a set of recommendations to address the pressing need to improve the ways in which the output of scientific research is evaluated by funding agencies , academic institutions , and other parties . As a result of this effort , a worldwide initiative , covering all scholarly disciplines , is now under way to build support for the developed guidelines referred to as the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment ( DORA ). More than 150 individuals and 80 organizations originally signed on to the declaration . During the recent IS- MPMI Board Meeting , the board approved including IS-MPMI as a supporting organization , agreeing to the adoption of the practices in research assessment as published at http :// am . ascb . org / dora . If you have any additional feedback or interest in this initiative , please contact IS-MPMI President Sophien Kamoun ( Sophien . kamoun @ tsl . ac . uk ). n
COMING EVENTS
July 23 – 26 , 2013 5th European Plant Science Retreat ( for Ph . D . students ) Ghent University , Belgium www . psb . ugent . be /~ madub / EPSR5
August 10 – 14 , 2013 APS-MSA Joint Meeting Austin , Texas , U . S . A . • www . apsnet . org / meet
August 25 – 30 , 2013 10th International Congress of Plant Pathology ( ICPP 2013 ) Beijing , China • www . icppbj2013 . org
October 14 – 18 , 2013 18th International Congress on Nitrogen Fixation Miyazaki , Japan • icnf18 . brc . miyazaki-u . ac . jp
Include your meeting in IS-MPMI ’ s printed and online event calendar . Submit online at www . ismpminet . org / meetings / calsubmit . asp .
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