Conference: 39th MU Interdisciplinary Plant Group (IPG) Annual Symposium

Pathogens, insects, and different stresses such as flooding, prolonged droughts, and heat waves, inflict heavy losses to agricultural production worldwide and threaten global food security. The alarming increase in the frequency and intensity of these stresses, an outcome of global warming and climate change, highlights the importance of studying how plants can be made more resilient to stress.

Based on these studies, new varieties of many different crops and trees can be developed with increased tolerance to different stresses. These would decrease annual damages associated with different pathogens, and stresses such as drought, flooding, or heat waves, preventing billions of dollars’ worth in damages to agriculture, and increasing food security under a changing climate.

In addition to increasing the knowledge base of plant responses to abiotic stress, training of a new generation of researchers in interdisciplinary research methods is a must, as novel technologies that mitigate climate change would most likely come from interdisciplinary research. The current grant will support an interdisciplinary conference that focuses on how to make plants more tolerant to stress.

The planned symposium will enhance the learning and networking opportunities afforded to students, postdoctoral fellows, and early career scientists and expose them to interdisciplinary research. Furthermore, by instilling the virtues of interdisciplinary collaboration early in students’ careers the conference will extend the benefits to society because the mindset and approaches needed to tackle big societal challenges will be taught to the next generation of scientists.

Reactive oxygen species, and the changes they cause in the reduction–oxidation (redox) state of cells, are key signaling molecules required for the activation of plant acclimation and defense mechanisms. Dissecting and understanding how reactive oxygen species orchestrate plant responses to stress will significantly contribute to the overall efforts of the scientific community to improve plant tolerance to stress and mitigate some of the current and upcoming harsh environmental challenges.

The 39th University of Missouri Interdisciplinary Plant Group’s Annual Symposium was therefore developed around the theme of Redox Regulation of Plant Stress and Development (May 23-26, 2023). This symposium will bring together experts at the intersections of different disciplines to educate the scientific community about reactive oxygen species and redox signaling and the many different processes tightly linked to them.

The symposium will also broaden participation of underrepresented groups. It includes, for example, a diverse group of speakers, so that students from diverse backgrounds could see themselves represented. Of the 18 confirmed speakers, 8 are women, and 5 are of non-white ethnicity.

Furthermore, early career scientists are included as invited speakers: 4 assistant professor-level and 1 postdoc, of which 3 are women and 2 are African American. This will provide a platform for women and underrepresented minorities to advance their careers by providing visibility of their work at a world-renowned meeting, attended by numerous distinguished scientists, two of whom are members of the National Academy of Sciences.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.