Dear ASPS Members,

 Hello ASPS members,

The June edition of Phytogen is out now and can be accessed HERE.

A reminder that the 2022 Annual Meeting for the Australian Society of Plant Scientists will be held in Melbourne (27-30 September) as part of ComBIO2022  (see ComBio2022 ).

ComBIO is the joint meeting of five biological and genetics societies from Australia and New Zealand. It provides us all with the opportunity to experience a much larger and exciting meeting and hear outstanding international and local speakers from the plant and animal worlds (including Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna). Among the wide range of symposia are streams dedicated to plant biology, signalling and evolution.

Deadline for Abstracts is Friday 24 JUNE – see the website.   

Note: Student members of ASPS who attend ComBIO and present a talk or poster are eligible to receive funding to support their travel. See ASPS website HERE.

We encourage everyone to participate.  

Peter

This Friday is the 24th June and hopefully you are managing to form together your abstracts and will be able to submit for the early bird registration. Here are some pointers from the ComBio 2022 website:

• Abstracts cannot be accepted without prior registration and payment of a registration fee.
• All abstracts must be submitted online via this page.
• Abstracts sent as attachments will not be accepted.
• Abstract submission is restricted to one oral or one poster communication per registrant. However, those registrants submitting an abstract in the “Education” theme are also welcome to submit an additional abstract relevant to another theme.

After you submit your abstract by 24th June 2022, students are encouraged to apply for travel awards to pay for travel to ComBio2022.

Here is the link: https://www.asps.org.au/awards/combio-travel-awards-2 Your applications have to be in by 4th July 2022.

Very topical is the price of lettuce. Here are some articles you might find interesting; 

Freshmark representing the central markets across Australia, explains crops lost to the floods and now cooler winter conditions will cause shortages in fresh produce to continue.

The Winter 2022 issue of Vegetables Australia also has an article on page 16 describing the floods in New South Wales and Queensland that occurred in April 2022. The magazine has many interesting articles, R&D, reports on horticultural meetings, innovation and high tech, another on page 58 investigates urban horticulture.

Insider Guides, International Student Resources have a link from their article to the seasonal food guide to explore what is available in the meantime seasonally:

PB2022 registration at lowest rates ended June 8 2022. On Demand Plant Biology Extended will be available for purchase for those not able to attend the meeting in person. More details to come…..

Please login and check your ASPS membership is up to date. Encourage your colleagues and students to join ASPS. Go to: https://www.asps.org.au/members/join

Tweet to @asps_ozplants your news and upcoming events.

Hi ASPS members,

May Phytogen can be accessed HERE.

The local ASPS organising committee would like to gently remind you that early bird registration for ComBio 2022 (Melbourne, 27-30^th Sept) closes June 24^th.

This conference is a great opportunity to meet friends and colleagues face-to-face after long periods of zoom-based interactions.

As per usual there is an excellent line up of plenary speakers. The highlight being Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna and the two plant-specific speakers Siobhan Brady and Niko Geldner.

Attached (ComBio2022TT) is an outline of the program.

The plant stream symposia are as follows:

EXTRACELLULAR MATRICES

PLANT DEVELOPMENT

PLANT GENOMICS, GENETICS & GENE EDITING

FROM LAB TO FIELD

PHOTOSYNTHESIS & CARBOHYDRATES

PLANT WATER TRANSPORT & UTILIZATION

PLANT SUCCESS – ENLISTING THE POWER OF MODELS

REPRODUCTION & SEED BIOLOGY

PLANTS & THEIR ENVIRONMENTS

Importantly, there is also ASPS student travel support for conference attendance (application due 4 July 2022):

https://combio.org.au/combio2022/student.html

As a small favour could we ask you to print out the attached ComBio2022 flyer and distribute in your department/institute to help with advertising.

Please do come along and enjoy the science, cold/wet Melbourne and the opportunity to socialise.

Looking forward to seeing you all,

John/Ros (ASPS – LOC ComBio)

ComBio2022: 27 – 30 September 2022, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre
Early Registration & Abstract Deadline: Friday, 24 June 2022
https://combio.org.au/combio2022/

After a long pause in our plans, we are very pleased to advise that the ComBio2022 online registration and abstract submission forms are now available at:

https://www.combio.org.au/cgi-bin/combio-registration-form.cgi
and
https://www.combio.org.au/cgi-bin/combio-abstract-form.cgi respectively.

This will be a full face-to-face meeting.

ComBio2022 is a combination of five societies holding their annual meetings:

Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Australian Society of Plant Scientists
Australia and New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology
Genetics Society of AustralAsia
New Zealand Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

The program timetable can be accessed from: https://combio.org.au/combio2022/timetable.html

You can also see the plenary speakers and their photographs and biographies at:
https://combio.org.au/combio2022/plenary.html

We are pleased to advise that this year, the very popular “Career Development Forum” will be almost a full day of sessions held on Tuesday, 27 September offsite. 


Further information:

Sally Jay
combio@asbmb.org.au

Hi ASPS members,

May Phytogen can be accessed HERE.

The local ASPS organising committee would like to gently remind you that early bird registration for ComBio 2022 (Melbourne, 27-30^th Sept) closes June 24^th.

This conference is a great opportunity to meet friends and colleagues face-to-face after long periods of zoom-based interactions.

As per usual there is an excellent line up of plenary speakers. The highlight being Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna and the two plant-specific speakers Siobhan Brady and Niko Geldner.

Attached (ComBio2022TT) is an outline of the program.

The plant stream symposia are as follows:

EXTRACELLULAR MATRICES

PLANT DEVELOPMENT

PLANT GENOMICS, GENETICS & GENE EDITING

FROM LAB TO FIELD

PHOTOSYNTHESIS & CARBOHYDRATES

PLANT WATER TRANSPORT & UTILIZATION

PLANT SUCCESS – ENLISTING THE POWER OF MODELS

REPRODUCTION & SEED BIOLOGY

PLANTS & THEIR ENVIRONMENTS

Importantly, there is also ASPS student travel support for conference attendance (application due 4 July 2022):

https://combio.org.au/combio2022/student.html

As a small favour could we ask you to print out the attached ComBio2022 flyer and distribute in your department/institute to help with advertising.

Please do come along and enjoy the science, cold/wet Melbourne and the opportunity to socialise.

Looking forward to seeing you all,

John/Ros (ASPS – LOC ComBio)

ComBio2022: 27 – 30 September 2022, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre
Early Registration & Abstract Deadline: Friday, 24 June 2022
https://combio.org.au/combio2022/

After a long pause in our plans, we are very pleased to advise that the ComBio2022 online registration and abstract submission forms are now available at:

https://www.combio.org.au/cgi-bin/combio-registration-form.cgi
and
https://www.combio.org.au/cgi-bin/combio-abstract-form.cgi respectively.

This will be a full face-to-face meeting.

ComBio2022 is a combination of five societies holding their annual meetings:

Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Australian Society of Plant Scientists
Australia and New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology
Genetics Society of AustralAsia
New Zealand Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

The program timetable can be accessed from: https://combio.org.au/combio2022/timetable.html

You can also see the plenary speakers and their photographs and biographies at:
https://combio.org.au/combio2022/plenary.html

We are pleased to advise that this year, the very popular “Career Development Forum” will be almost a full day of sessions held on Tuesday, 27 September offsite. 


Further information:

Sally Jay
combio@asbmb.org.au

Welcome to Phytogen for May 2022.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dear ASPS Members,

A reminder that the 2022 Annual Meeting for the Australian Society of Plant Scientists will be held in Melbourne (27-30 September) as part of ComBIO2022  (see ComBio2022 ).

ComBIO is the joint meeting of five biological and genetics societies from Australia and New Zealand. It provides us all with the opportunity to experience a much larger and exciting meeting and hear outstanding international and local speakers from the plant and animal worlds (including Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna). Among the wide range of symposia are streams dedicated to plant biology, signalling and evolution.

Deadline for Abstracts is Friday 24 JUNE – see the website. Please print off the attached POSTER and display it in your labs and tea rooms.

Note: Student members of ASPS who attend ComBio and present a talk or poster are eligible to receive funding to support their travel. See the attached Student-Travel-Grant-for-ComBio2022 – due 4th July 2022.

We encourage everyone to participate.

Peter.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Taking a look at the Programme of Plenaries and Keynotes, 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Professor Jennifer Doudna is delivering the opening Keynote Lecture. Jennifer’s research field is gene editing and CRISPR, revolutionising agriculture and genetics. In early childhood in Hawaii, marvelling at plants is where it all began – will be very inspirational for all of us. There is also Professor Siobhan Brady from the College of Biological Sciences at the University of California, UCDavis. Here is an amazing article about growing food despite drought. Plus Professor Niko Geldner from the Department of Plant Molecular Biology, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, will be speaking about the root endodermis.

Root endodermis, Geldner Lab

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In May there has been an interesting article growing plants with soil from the moon: Scientists Grow Plants in Lunar Soil from the 12th May 2022.

We wish students and teachers all the best in preparing for exams and semester assessments in coming months.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

PB2022 registration at lowest rates ends June 8 2022. On Demand Plant Biology Extended will be available for purchase for those not able to attend the meeting in person. More details to come…..

Please login and check your ASPS membership is up to date. Encourage your colleagues and students to join ASPS. Go to: https://www.asps.org.au/members/join

Tweet to @asps_ozplants your news and upcoming events.

Hello ASPS members,

The April edition of Phytogen is out now and available HERE.

The Global Plant Council April e-bulletin is available HERE.

Welcome to Phytogen for April 2022,

Our politicians are on the campaign trail and to get you thinking, here are reports from Science Meets Parliament 2022 introduced by Peter Ryan.

Science and Technology Australia (STA) is an umbrella organisation that represents 90,000 STEM professionals in Australian from ~60 member societies and associations. STA regularly surveys its members to develop STEM-related policies that are then presented to governments, private enterprises and other stakeholders. One of the major STA events organised each year is Science Meets Parliament which facilitates direct interactions between scientists, lobbyists and politicians. The participants hear talks from leading scientists and gain insight into parliamentary processes and policy development. The participants also learn from experienced staffers about how best to approach politicians and pitch ideas for maximum impact. The whole experience is a rare and valuable opportunity that will hopefully empower more researchers and academics to effectively communicate their ideas, aspirations and concerns directly to decision makers. Members of STA send two representatives to Science Meets Parliament each year and for 2022 ASPS was represented by Megan Shelden (University of Adelaide) and Benjamin Schwessinger (ANU). Their reports are attached below.

Although held in a busy part of the academic year, Science Meets Parliament is a rewarding experience. ASPS members interested in participating in 2023 should lookout for messages in Phytogen early next year.

Peter Ryan (President ASPS).

Megan Shelden, School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Technology, University of Adelaide.

I had the pleasure of representing the ASPS as a delegate at Science Meets Parliament in 2022. Due to the ongoing pandemic, the event was held online over 5 days. Despite this, I found the event to be a very valuable experience and thoroughly enjoyed the sessions.

Science meets Parliament 2022, kicked off with a wonderful Welcome to Country by Ngunnawal Elder Wally Bell. This was followed by the opening keynote address by the inspiring Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty. Professor Doherty has become an avid science communicator and “twitter sensation” over the course of the pandemic. In the Professors’ words “You cannot convince everybody but you can engage anyone with respect”.

Panel sessions highlighted the need to communicate our science effectively and gave us many practical tips on how to engage with parliamentarians and really make the most of our meetings with Members of Parliament. I particularly loved the “Marie Kondo your writing” session with Mischa Schubert (CEO of Science and Technology Australia) – so many writing tips that have already helped me enormously!

There were so many highlights in the program: Professor Brian Cox and astrophysicist Kirsten Banks gave their tips for effective science communication, the National Press Club Address by Professor Mark Hutchinson, and the final session, a commercialisation masterclass with Australia’s Chief Scientist, Dr Cathy Foley.

I was very fortunate to participate in a zoom meeting with Ms Kate Thwaites MP, the federal ALP member for Jagajaga, with two other Science meets Parliament delegates Dr Kelly Walton (UQ) and Dr Hamish Brown (UniMelb).  We discussed the importance of food security, particularly in light of the recent floods in Australia and climate change. We also discussed the need for government to continue to invest in scientific discoveries.

I would absolutely recommend attending this event if you get the opportunity. I would love to attend Science Meets Parliament again in the future (in-person!) and am very much looking forward to the National Gala Dinner to be held in June 2022.

Benjamin Schwessinger, Research School of Biology, ANU College of Science, ANU

Politics needs Science and Science needs politicians.

As scientists is it worth our time to engage with politicians and politics? Like many other high performances high pressure professions, we scientists are time poor and too often too busy with too much busy work. So, it begs the question if adding another item to the to-do list is worth the effort.

One day early summer 2021 our ASPS president, Dr. Peter Ryan, invited members to join Science Meets Parliament 2022 (SMP22). I said “yes” of course, it being held in a far distant future without an overloaded schedule, just yet. I always had a great interest in politics and politicians as my father was actively involved in regional politics for over four decades including being major of my hometown for three.  SMP is a Science and Technology of Australia flagship event that brings together scientists, public servants, policymakers, and politicians for about a week to learn from each other and to network. It all started in 1999 as a small friendly face-to-face event, yet this year’s SMP22 was unfortunately another online event due to COVID19. The event itself was a series of classic lectures, panel discussion style workshops and virtual networking events one could attend live or catch up on during the week. Besides skill building this year’s focus was on indigenous knowledge and panel members where often the who-is-who of Australian Science and Technology including multiple Nobel Laureates, CEOs, and prominent media figures. Some of the sessions worked well while others suffered from the online format, at least for me. I would have preferred to randomly bump into people, to start spontaneous conversations in hallways, and get to know people who might or might not be of benefit to know some years down the track. Path can be very short if you know the right people I learned early on in my life.

My personal highlights were the National Press Club address with Professor Mark Hutchinson and meeting parliamentarian Maria Vamvakinou.

The Press Club dinner was delicious while the address was a bit disappointing. For my taste Prof. Hutchinson’s address was too much self-involved, ego driven stardom with “bench to boardroom” talk that praised recent government investment into translational science. Of course, additional investment into science is very welcome. We in Australia clearly need to get better in converting yesterday’s wonderful basic science investment into commercial outcomes today. No question. Yet Prof. Hutchinson could have warned the audience more explicitly that we need to invest more into the whole knowledge generation to translation pipeline because without out groundbreaking basic science today there will be nothing to commercialize tomorrow.

Our group conversation with MP Vamvakinou was impressive as she came very well prepared to the discussion with clear objectives wanting to learn more and to listen. Maria was very engaged, fully on top of it, and very smart. One topic that really hit home with me is that Australia has a wide-ranging skill shortage in many STEM related sectors which holds back the economy. This was reiterated several weeks later at another National Press Club event hosting Minister for Agriculture and Northern Australia David Littleproud, which was sponsored by Crop Life.

Us scientists have a clear role to play here, at universities and other research organizations. We train the future workforce who will step into leadership roles, be it in politics, the public service or industry. Delivering world class education in STEM is a very significant contribution to Australia’s economy. Of course, our basic science has the potential to be transformational if it is supported in with the right frameworks. So, all our science needs funding and science funding needs advocacy at all levels. We as scientists need to listen to policy makers and public servants to identify joined problems and to engage in meaningful conversations. We all have our role to play, one-on-one during spontaneous hallway conversations or via our scientific societies. It is well worth our time to patiently and levelheaded illustrate the worth of our combined research pipeline to society. If not some of us who else?

In May is Fascination of plants day (FoPD22). This international event is always on the 18th May. If you would like to organise an event during May, email: georgia.koerber@adelaide.edu.au and events can be added to the events site.

.

Please login and check your ASPS membership is up to date. Encourage your colleagues and students to join ASPS. Go to: https://www.asps.org.au/members/join

Tweet to @asps_ozplants your news and upcoming events.

Dear ASPS Members,

The March edition of Phytogen is out now and can be accessed HERE.

Reminding you many of our ASPS award applications are closing at the end of the month.

ASPS Awards for 2022: We encourage applications for our annual awards. These include the Goldacre Medal, the Jan Anderson Award, the Robertson Travelling Fellowship and Education and Outreach Award. Deadlines are 28 March and details are available in the HERE.

ComBio 2022: 

ComBIO 2022 (Melbourne, 27-20 September 2022) includes, among many others, a Plenary Address from Jennifer Doudna, the Nobel Laureate for her work on gene editing. ComBIO is a combined meeting organised by several societies involved in biological sciences. Details at  https://combio.org.au/combio2022/information.html.

Importantly, student members of ASPS can apply for funding to attend this meeting and details will be released soon. Student poster prizes will also be awarded.

Thanks, Peter

Dr Peter R Ryan

President, Australian Society of Plant Scientists

Honorary Fellow, CSIRO Agriculture and Food

PO Box 1700

Canberra ACT 2601, Australia

Email: Peter.Ryan@csiro.au

Mob: 0468671565

The year is under way and hope you are managing to settle into your studies, experiments and teaching. As Peter has said ASPS awards are closing 28th March 2022:

Dear ASPS Members,

Reminding you many of our ASPS award applications are closing at the end of the month.

ASPS Awards for 2022: We encourage applications for our annual awards. These include the Goldacre Medal, the Jan Anderson Award, the Robertson Travelling Fellowship and Education and Outreach Award. Deadlines are 28 March and details are available HERE.

ComBio 2022: 

ComBIO 2022 (Melbourne, 27-20 September 2022) includes, among many others, a Plenary Address from Jennifer Doudna, the Nobel Laureate for her work on gene editing. ComBIO is a combined meeting organised by several societies involved in biological sciences. Details at  https://combio.org.au/combio2022/information.html.

Importantly, student members of ASPS can apply for funding to attend this meeting and details will be released soon. Student poster prizes will also be awarded.

Thanks, Peter

Dr Peter R Ryan

President, Australian Society of Plant Scientists

Honorary Fellow, CSIRO Agriculture and Food

To inspire your applications, here is an article from Joanna Melonek, ASPS 2021 Peter Goldacre Medal Recipient. You will read that the wheat genome is complex but Joanna has conveyed her work with enthusiasm making it interesting and intriguing. It is lovely that she has managed to carry out her research with such nice collaboration too.

Joanna with hybrid wheat plants. Photo Julie Leroux.

 Figure 2. The extraordinary complexity of the wheat genome. A. 1686 PPR genes were identified in the wheat IWGSC RefSeqv1.0 genome. B. Picture of wheat spikes of transgenic wheat plants producing anthers (F-Fertile) and a wheat spike unable to produce anthers and functional pollen (S-Sterile). Photo Laurent Beuf (Group Limagrain).

With the assistance of researchers from Limagrain (the 4^th largest seed-producing company in the world), I was able to show that both genes are able to restore fertility of wheat plants carrying Triticum timopheevii-type CMS (T-CMS). Furthermore, I was able to identify orf279 as the mitochondrial gene responsible for preventing pollen production in wheat and causing sterility. The discoveries described in the article were the basis of two patent applications and are currently used by Limagrain in their hybrid breeding programmes.

The Peter Goldacre Medal is a great recognition and confirmation from my peers and the broader plant scientific community that they find my work interesting. Therefore I’m truly honoured and thankful to the Australian Society of Plant Scientists and the very vibrant plant community in Australia for it. Of course, this all would not have been possible without the support from many people who accompany me on my scientific journey, and I’m very grateful to all of them for that!

Joanna receiving the Peter Goldacre Medal. Photo Muhammad Kamran.

References:

1. Melonek J et al. (2016) Evolutionary plasticity of restorer-of-fertility-like proteins in rice. Sci Rep. 24:35152. doi:10.1038/srep35152
2. Melonek J et al. (2019) High intraspecific diversity of Restorer-of-fertility-like genes in barley. Plant J. 97(2):281-295. doi:10.1111/tpj.14115.
3. The International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (2018) Shifting the limits in wheat research and breeding using a fully annotated reference genome. Science. 361(6403). doi: 10.1126/science.aar7191.
4. Walkowiak S et al. (2020) Multiple wheat genomes reveal global variation in modern breeding. Nature. 588:277-283. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2961-x.
5. Rabanus-Wallace MT et al. (2021) Chromosome-scale genome assembly provides insights into rye biology, evolution, and agronomic potential. Nat Genet. 53:564-573. doi:10.1038/s41588-021-00807-0.
6. Melonek J et al. (2021) The genetic basis of cytoplasmic male sterility and fertility restoration in wheat. Nat Commun. 12(1):1036. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-21225-0.

Fascination of plants day (FoPD22) is approaching in May. This international event is always on the 18th May.

If you would like to organise an event during May anywhere in Australia, email: georgia.koerber@adelaide.edu.au and events can be added to the Australian site.

Due to Covid-19, events for all countries the last couple of years have been disrupted and recent posts in the lead up to FoPD2022 take a look back featuring many countries events from years prior to COVID. The one in 2019 with Ukraine is poignant.

The Global Plant Council has a webpage of resources: https://globalplantcouncil.org/resources/resources-for-refugees-of-the-ukrainian-war/ 

Lastly, 23rd March is National Eucalypt Day! Congratulations Eucalyptus regnans #EucalyptoftheYear

Hello ASPS members,

Phytogen February edition can be found HERE.