Intellectual Merit: The 24th International Conference on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR) will be held June 25-28, 2013 at the Convention and Exhibition Centre in Sydney, Australia. The success of research on Arabidopsis thaliana has been greatly facilitated by the openness and collegiality of the community, fostered through multiple international forums including ICAR, which brings together approximately 1,000 participants to exchange scientific results and report on progress in the field. The conference will cover a broad range of important topics including Evolution and Natural Variation; Small RNAs, RNA and Epigenetics; Transgenerational Inheritance; Development; Hormones; Cell and Organelle Biology; Intracellular Signaling; Cell to Cell Communication; Abiotic Stress; Biotic Stress/Interactions; Energy Biology/Metabolism; Photosynthesis and Water; Phenomics; Proteins and Posttranslational Regulation; Emerging Technologies and Systems Biology; Emerging Topics and What's Hot, and Translational Biology. There will also be a series of satellite meetings on plant energy biology, epigenetics and high-throughput plant phenomics. The meeting will include a special tribute in memory of Simon Chan, a highly talented early-career U.S. scientist who tragically passed away in 2012. The "Simon Chan Symposium" will feature presentations in the research area in which he performed his groundbreaking studies, notably, by demonstrating the practical feasibility in Arabidopsis of "reverse breeding", one of the most sought goals of plant breeding.
Broader Impacts: ICARs have proven to be an extremely effective venue for exposing young scientists to the field and for encouraging interactions between younger and more senior researchers. In addition to platform talks the conference will include 36 speakers chosen from submitted abstracts with an emphasis on presentations by students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty members at early stages of their careers. There will also be community-organized workshops that allow additional speakers to present their research. This will ensure presentation of the latest results and provide important career development for young scientists. The ICARs, which provide the primary annual opportunity for scientists in the Arabidopsis community, as well as other plant biologists to meet and share the latest research, are a key component in the continuing success of the worldwide Arabidopsis community. ICARs have proven to be a highly effective venue for enhancing information exchange, creating new networks and establishing new collaborations. The ICARs are also critical to facilitate higher-level organization of the plant research community by providing a venue for groups like the International Arabidopsis Informatics Consortium, the Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee, and the North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee to convene annually. These meetings allow discussions of the current status of the international Arabidopsis community as well as development of future plans and research directions. Ensuring the participation of scientists from diverse backgrounds is critical to the vitality of science in the U.S. A key goal is to increase participation among under-represented minority scientists and early-career scientists. To this end, participation will be supported for under-represented minority scientists and faculty from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Minority Serving Institutions, and 1890 Institutions. In addition, participation of graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and beginning investigators will be fostered through travel awards to attend the conference. The conference program and abstracts will be publicly available on the conference website and archived at the Arabidopsis database.
Report Type: Project Outcomes Report for the General Public PI: Jose Alonso Awardee: North Carolina State University Project Outcomes Report This project supported two International Conferences on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR), the largest annual international plant biology gathering that focuses on basic and applied research using the reference plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. These gatherings facilitate exchange of information at the forefront of Arabidopsis research and enable the establishment of new, and the strengthening of old, collaborations and networks. The conferences also host annual meetings of several scientific planning committees formed to strengthen domestic and international plant research and education. Thousands of researchers globally use Arabidopsis in their studies, which inform nearly all aspects of plant biology. Arabidopsis is still the plant species with the best features to rapidly enable new discoveries; knowledge derived through its study continue to be applied to crop species, thus paving the way for rational improvements in a variety of agricultural traits. Arabidopsis research and education are incorporated in many universities and have enabled training of a great number of students that go on to work in various scientific fields including education, university and industry research, policy, and government. The success of this field has been greatly facilitated by the openness and collegiality of the community fostered through participation in ICAR. The most significant output for this project was support for 19 US scientists to participate at ICAR 2013 (Australia) and ICAR 2014 (Vancouver), which hosted 650 and 625 participants, respectively. For ICAR 2013, the project prioritized facilitating participation by US early career researchers (ECR) and under-represented minorities (URM) that are historically under-represented in advanced fields of science; both groups typically have reduced access to attend major meetings and benefit from opportunities that allow their participation. The project also supported participation by US steering committee members to present new career-building workshops at ICAR 2014. Specifically, the project supported US participation by four URM and two faculty members that teach at minority-serving institutions; five ECR, including graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and junior faculty; two early career invited speakers, and six steering committee members to conduct career-workshops and engage in ECR and URM networking with ICAR attendees. Both meetings featured an expanded set of concurrent sessions and workshops, which provided numerous opportunities for presentations by early-career participants including students, post-doctoral scholars, and new faculty. In order to support new scientists and broaden career impact, the 2014 meeting focused on including invited speakers in early career stages or that do not regularly present at these gatherings. The 2013 sessions featured 85 oral and 350+ poster presentations, as well as 50+ additional talks in community workshops. The 2014 sessions featured 155 oral and 400+ poster presentations, and an additional 40+ talks in community workshops. Conference topics spanned the breadth and depth of plant biology from the molecular to the systems level, up to the ecological level and included basic and applied research. A partial combined list of session topics includes: Biotechnology, bioenergy, and food security; Biotic Responses and plant defense; Development; Environmental responses; Modeling, bioinformatics and systems biology; Light and plant growth; Natural Variation, ecology, evolution; Novel tools and techniques; Plant hormones; Translational biology; Plant defense, immunity and host-microbe interactions; Epigenetics and chromatin; Synthetic biology; Small RNAs, RNA and epigenetics; Cell and organelle biology; Intracellular signaling; Cell to cell communication; Energy biology and metabolism; Photosynthesis and water; Phenomics; Proteins and posttranslational regulation, and Emerging technologies. Finally, the 2014 meetings included new career-development workshops focused on early-stage researchers and groups that are under-represented in advanced areas of science in the US. Workshop programs targeted essential skills like networking, communicating science to the public and time management. Additional focused sessions were held separately by career stage or under-represented group status, with topics including career options in science; how to get an independent research position and thrive; effective mentoring and management techniques; how to find funding in challenging times; and the importance of building and maintaining collaborations. The North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee (NAASC), a member of the Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee (MASC), held its annual meetings at ICAR 2013 and 2014 and also represented North America in the annual MASC meetings. Thus, the ICAR continues to be the ideal venue to convene the community to evaluate progress and future directions.
