This proposal, from Dale Noel of Marquette University, will organize a U.S.-Japan workshop titled Genomics, Molecular Mechanisms and Evolution of Symbiotic Nitrogen Fixation. The workshop, jointly organized with Professor Shigeyuki Tajima of Kagawa University, will take place outside Tokyo, Japan on August 15-19, 2006. Sixteen U.S. participants, including at least five graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, will join 11 Japanese researchers and their students for the meeting. Meeting sessions will explore the following topics: 1) bacterial genetic and genomic-proteomic approaches to understanding symbiosis; 2) evolution and horizontal phylogenetic distribution of plant-microbe associations; 3) biochemistry and molecular interactions during symbiotic development; 4) molecular genetics and genomics-proteomics of two model legumes; and 5) from model legumes to soybean and other crop legumes.
