Dear ASPS members,

The ARC Centres of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis and in Plant Energy Biology

Invite you to a Special Plantae Seminar on:

Creating Crops for the Future: Challenges, Technology and Sustainable Solutions

One of the most urgent scientific challenges of the 21^st century lies in ensuring that we have enough food for the growing global population. Join us for this special event where three experts in the field of plant science will speak on how scientists are advancing sustainable crops and biotechnologies to make world food security a reality.

Join Moderator Professor John Evans (ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis) in a unique forum for discussion about how critical and complex issues can be addressed, including water and land scarcity, climate change, the role of genetic engineering and other modern agricultural technologies and the importance of interdisciplinary approaches.

This event is presented by Plantae, and co-hosted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology.

 Speakers: Professor Pamela Ronald (UC Davis), Professor Harvey Millar (ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology) and Professor Robert Furbank (ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis)

Date: November 11, 11:00 am to 1:00 pm Australia East Coast Daylight Time (AEDT UTC+11 )

which is November 10, 7:00-9:00 pm  EST, 4:00-6:00 pm PST

Event Moderator: Professor John Evans, ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis

Organised by: Plantae – more information at https://plantae.org/creating-crops-for-the-future-challenges-technology-and-sustainable-solutions/

Register here

About the talks:

Speaker 1: Professor Pamela Ronald (UC Davis)

Title: Improving Food Security for the World’s Poorest Farmers: Rice Genetics and the Future of Food 

Summary: How do we feed a growing population and engineer crops that are resilient to climate change? How do we fight crop diseases while reducing chemical sprays? How do we enhance the nutrition of staple food crops? The rapid advance of genetic technologies has provided new tools to address these questions, and they have already made an impact at a global scale. Professor Pamela Ronald will discuss advances in the genetic basis of plant microbe interactions and will describe development of climate-resilient rice varieties grown by more than six million subsistence farmers in India and Bangladesh.                

Speaker 2: Professor Harvey Millar (ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology)

Title: Plant Energy Biology: Altering energy use efficiency in plants to enhance crop growth and yield.

Summary: After plants convert light energy into chemical energy, they then need to use it efficiently within cells to maximise growth and yield.  To tap into this potential, global efforts to improve photosynthesis are being complemented by strategies to improve energy use within plants by considering the cost of major use processes and how they can be optimised, especially under harsh and changing environmental conditions. Such processes include respiratory function, stress signalling, ion transport and protein turnover. This presentation will review some of these strategies from their inception in model plants to the progress and challenges of their deployment in crops.

Speaker 3: Professor Robert Furbank (ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis)

Title: Photons to Food: boosting photosynthesis to improve food crop yields

Summary: Photosynthetic traits have become a major focus for crop improvement in recent years as progress due to green revolution yield gains becomes exhausted.  Global efforts to improve photosynthetic performance span from transgenic targeted approaches using synthetic biology to genome-phenome approaches to sieve out the very best germplasm for more traditional breeding and genome selection. This presentation reviews some progress and challenges from both approaches and attempts to look “over the horizon” to the future of crop breeding.

Hello ASPS members,

The latest issue of Phytogen is available HERE.

The last issue of the Global Plant Council e-Bulletin can be accessed HERE.

The Aquaporin Workshop is open to everyone, it’s free and online, https://cbrin.com.au/events/aquaporins-solutions-exploring-how-aquaporins-can-solve-food-and-water-challenges/

Session 1 – Monday 2^nd November – understanding aquaporin regulation

Session 2 – Tuesday 10^th November – characterising plant aquaporins

Session 3 – Monday 16^th November – using aquaporins to solve real world problems

Session 4 – Monday 23^rd November – pitching ideas for solving aquaporin mysteries

Please note that separate registration links and timing information for each session are included within the above website link.

The proceedings include an outstanding collection of video talks from international and national speakers, and we will have representatives from a number of industry organisations participating.

In addition to the talks there will be interactive workshop challenge activities. Examples of the types of challenge topics are included below:

– How can we determine which endogenous molecules in cells are key in influencing aquaporin regulation? – Which native molecules synthesised by cells have ‘secret lives’ as aquaporin regulatory agents?

– The function of many aquaporins can be influenced by calcium, cyclic nucleotide, reactive oxygen species, hormone and phosphorylation kinase signalling, among other regulatory factors; how can we confirm the hierarchy in the order of influence of these signals?
– Throughout evolution aquaporins with many different types of functions have been selected for – have we scratched the surface of determining the complement of different roles of different types of aquaporins?

– How do we figure out what the role of aquaporins in organelles might be?

– What is the pathway for water and cation transport through aquaporins, is it via monomeric or tetrameric channels or does it depend on the specific aquaporin?

– How could diversity in aquaporin function be leveraged for medical applications? – How could manipulation of aquaporin function be achieved to reduce fluid pressure related problems associated with living in low gravity environments, and how can we figure out the complement of fluid and pressure related disorders that involve altered aquaporin regulation?
– How could diversity in aquaporin function be leveraged for crop improvement? – How do we test the relative proportion of water that moves through plasmodesmata relative to moving though aquaporins?
– Over-expression of some aquaporins increases tolerance to osmotic stress, whereas overexpression of other aquaporin isoforms reduces tolerance. Why?
– Can we distinguish the influence of ion channel aquaporins on root-to-shoot ion flux given that ion flux could be influenced directly by aquaporin ion transport and indirectly by the influence of aquaporins on transpiration?

– How do aquaporins control tissue-scale hydraulics to regulate plant responses to the environment?
– Is there any evidence that switching of aquaporin water and ion channel functions could have a role in charging membrane potential to power other ion transport processes?

– How many different segments and end applications, that are compatible with a circular green economy, could aquaporins be involved in? – Aquaporins are already used in space for water filtration, what other applications are there for ‘designer’ aquaporins for enabling successful colonization of space and more sustainable life on Earth?

Please share with any colleagues who may be interested in these topics.

Thank you in advance,

Caitlin Byrt.

Hello ASPS members,

Our Annual General Meeting is Thursday, October 1.

Time: 12-2pm EST

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://anu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwvdOutrjojG9eIIHzpt2ElNXnit2sxBtbu

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

The Agenda and Diversity and Inclusion policy draft are attached for your consideration. All other draft reports are available through the ASPS website HERE.

See you at the AGM.

Hello ASPS members,

On Wednesday we have our ASPS awardee presentations, see the details below.

On Thursday we have the ASPS AGM.

ASPS AGM

Date: Thursday, October 1.

Time: 12-2pm

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://anu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwvdOutrjojG9eIIHzpt2ElNXnit2sxBtbu

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

September Phytogen out now and available HERE

ASPS award presentations

Please join us for a special edition of Plantae Presents, featuring four Australian Society of Plant Scientists awardees: the joint-winners of the Jan Anderson Award, Crystal Sweetman and Kristine Crous; the winner of the Peter Goldacre Award, Alex Wu; and the winner of the ASPS-FBP Best Paper Award, Karen Frick. Each will present a 15 or 20 minute talk, followed by five minutes of questions. This is a two hour webinar with the start times indicated below.

Wednesday Sept 30

Adel/Dar 4.00pm

Syd/Melb/Bris/Hob/Can 4.30pm

Perth 2.30pm

UK 7:30am, CET 8:30am, EDT 2:30am, (PDT 11:30 pm Tues Sept 29)

You can now register through the link below!

https://plantae.org/plantae-presents-asps-awardees-lectures-crystal-sweetman-kristine-crous-alex-wu-and-karen-frick/

Hello ASPS members,

Please join us for a special edition of Plantae Presents, featuring four Australian Society of Plant Scientists awardees: the joint-winners of the Jan Anderson Award, Crystal Sweetman and Kristine Crous; the winner of the Peter Goldacre Award, Alex Wu; and the winner of the ASPS-FBP Best Paper Award, Karen Frick. Each will present a 15 or 20 minute talk, followed by five minutes of questions. This is a two hour webinar with the start times indicated below.

Wednesday Sept 30

Adel/Dar 4.00pm

Syd/Melb/Bris/Hob/Can 4.30pm

Perth 2.30pm

UK 7:30am, CET 8:30am, EDT 2:30am, (PDT 11:30 pm Tues Sept 29)

You can now register through the link below!

https://plantae.org/plantae-presents-asps-awardees-lectures-crystal-sweetman-kristine-crous-alex-wu-and-karen-frick/

The September GPC e-bulletin is also avaiable HERE.

Dear ASPS past and present members,

As you are aware we will not hold an ASPS scientific meeting this year. However, we are planning to celebrate the achievements of our ASPS award winners with a special ASPS-Awards session host through the Plantae Presents – Virtual Science Talks.

Date: Wednesday 30^th September

Time: 4-6pm

We will also be holding the ASPS AGM the following day

Date: Thursday 1^st October

Time: 12-2pm

Registration and schedule details for these events will be sent soon.

Hello ASPS members,

The August Phytogen is now available HERE.

Next week is National Science Week. See what’s happening around Australia near you and virtually near us all including Taste Tomorrow.

The August Global Plant Council e-Bulletin is available HERE.

Keep well.

Hello ASPS members,

National Science Week is coming up and we’d like to encourage everyone interested to get involved.  ASPS member Kim Johnson is involved in this great initiative for National Science Week:

The National Science Week events ‘Taste Tomorrow: what will you be eating in 2050’ is now open for registration (www.tastetomorrow.edu.au/events) and will feature a panel of experts, including plant scientists.

The ON24 events will be hosted by John Brumby and Wade Kelly. When people register they will be delivered a box of mystery ‘future foods’ to spark conversation and people can also engage with the website (www.tastetomorrow.edu.au) to find fact files, blogs, experiments (for home or school) and recipes related to the sustainability and nutrition of the foods.

Taste Tomorrow will also post videos by chefs and sports personalities creating new recipes with our future foods (Insta taste_tomorrow, Twitter @taste_tomorrow, #tastetomorrow).

Thank-you for your support!

For more information contact:

Dr Kim Johnson

Senior Research Fellow

La Trobe Institute for Agriculture & Food (LIAF)

Department of Animal, Plant and Soil Science

k.johnson@latrobe.edu.au

Dear ASPS members,

Announcing the 2020 ASPS award winners;

Peter Goldacre Award – Alex Wu.

Jan Anderson Award (joint winners)- Kristine Crous and Crystal Sweetman.

ASPS Teaching Award – Hank Greenway, David Turner, Jane Gibbs and Brian Atwell.

Congratulations!

Announcing Peter Ryan as our ASPS President Elect.

The July Global Plan Council e-Bulletin can be accessed HERE.

Hello ASPS members,

As we adjust to different ways of living and working in this changing world alternative opportunities also arise.  This year you can attend Plant Biology 2020 World Summit without having to travel to the northern hemisphere!

Plant Biology 2020 Worldwide Summit

July 27-31

Virtual event with talks, workshops, posters, networking events and virtual exhibit hall

https://plantbiology.aspb.org/

All talks will be recorded for access on demand by registered participants, and virtual posters will be available for viewing shortly before, during, and after the meeting.

#PlantBio20

Note also that there are group rates that bring the cost down significantly

We also have two new PhD opportunities have been posted on our job board and can be viewed here.

Finally a member of the public has ask for help identifying a tree they saw on a trip to the west coast of Tasmania. Responses can be e-mailed to admin@asps.org.au , FB ASPSozplants or Twitter @asps_ozplants.