This annual meeting was held in Jena on February 23rd and 24th, 2024, and was organised by PD Dr. Alexandra Furch and Jun.-Prof. Dr. Julie Zedler. The event was supported by the German Society for Plant Sciences, Friedrich Schiller University Jena-Profileline Life and Biolabtec. A welcome kit was distributed to researchers from Dresden, Halle, Leipzig, and Jena as they arrived at the conference. The meeting was attended by over 70 researchers from four different locations (Dresden, Halle, Leipzig, Jena) and very international. The focus was, as always, on early career researchers including Bachelor, Master and PhD students and the opportunity for young researchers to attend a scientific meeting in a friendly environment, network and showcase their work in oral or poster presentations.
Sixteen early career researchers presented their findings in oral presentations. Additionally, Prof. Dr. Julia Kehr (University of Hamburg) offered recent findings on "Long-distance RNA signalling in plants" in her keynote, which could also be attended virtually in a live stream. During coffee breaks and poster sessions, nine posters were presented. These covered a wide range of topics from research on various photosynthetic hosts, including Cyanobacteria, Chlamydomonas, Arabidopsis, barley, and strawberry plants. In addition, many PhD candidates chaired the sessions and helped monitor the duration of lectures followed by interactive discussions. The scientific content of the meeting was organised in a total of four talk and two poster sessions.
Stressors and plant reactions
The range of topics was very diverse. A main theme was the investigation of abiotic and biotic stress responses. Photosynthetic organisms face a myriad of stressors. The mechanisms underlying abiotic and biotic stress responses are a long-lasting research topic in the field. Charlotte Ost (AG Humbeck) from Halle presented work on how drought stress is reprogramming the gene expression of barley. Nevertheless, an excess of water can be equally damaging to the plant. This was nicely shown by Felix Lutter (AG Krajinski , Leipzig), who investigates the role of nitric oxide and cytokinin in flooding tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana. Akanksha Ghandi (AG Fuch, Jena) added new insights on physiological responses to salt stress in Arabidopsis thaliana under the differential impact of Trichoderma harzianum. Additionally, applied research approaches to combat biotic stress in plants were a topic of interest this year: François Abi Daoud (AG Ludwig-Müller, Dresden) elaborated on a biocontrol approach to clubroot infestations in Canola cultivars. Glendis Shiko (AG Furch, Jena) talked about the potential of progestogens and androgens to combat fungal infections.
Research on various fundamental research topics were presented at the meeting ranging from eukaryotic microalgae to higher plants. Chulin Li (AG Mittag, Jena) presented work on characterising an algal cyptochrome and her colleague Trang Vuong studies algae in spatially structured environments. Martim Cardador gave insights into zygospore maturation processes in Chlamydomonas (AG Sasso, Leipzig). Nico Kistner (AG Klösgen) from Halle used a combined biochemical and bioinformatic approach to investigate the structure of the thylakoidal Tat translocase and Ditya Larasati (AG Klösgen) presented her latest findings to elucidate the organelle specificity of transit peptides. Several talks also showed the diverse applications of transcriptomics e.g. for quantitative studies in Arabidopsis thaliana mitochondria (Michelle Marofke, AG Kühn from Halle) or to elucidate transcriptional responses in the cytokinin signaling network (Wolfram Brenner, AG Krajinski from Leipzig). Finally, gametophytic self-incompatibility is believed to be one of the most important factors for the evolutionary success of flowering plants. New insights into this topic were presented by Pedram Jalali (AG Neinhuis and AG Ludwig-Müller, Dresden).
Some presentations also focused on applied research aspects. For instance, algal biopolymers have potential to substitute synthetic polymers in the future, reducing the CO2-footprint of polymer production. This was highlighted by Prajwal Basavaraju (AG Sasso, Leipzig) who purified and characterized a durable algal biopolymer. Miriam Verucchi (AG Zedler, Jena) is exploring the potential of cyanobacteria for producing certain natural products.
Awards
This year a poster and a talk committee composed of postdoctoral researchers from all locations worked hard to nominate winners of in total four prizes for oral presentations and posters (winner and runner-up). Martim Cardador from Leipzig (AG Sasso) won the best oral presentation and Theresa Staps (AG Schattat, Halle) was awarded with the runner up for her talk on pathogenic effectors on stromule regulating genes. Janine Keller (AG Zedler, Jena) won the best poster prize for her work on tracking bacteria in co-cultures. Priya Reddy (AG Furch, Jena) convinced the judges with her work on azelaic acid as an SOS signal in plant communication.
Overall, the 22nd Mitteldeutsche Pflanzenphysiologietagung tied in the success of previous meetings. As always, the warm and cheerful atmosphere aided researchers in networking and promoting their research not only during coffee breaks but also on a joint walk along the Saale to the dinner venue. The introduction of posters and awards certainly increased the excitement of the young scholars and left many of us with new ideas and connections to other institutes. The high standard of contributions and the positive atmosphere with many questions throughout the entire meeting were highlighted by the hosts in the closing statement. Finally, Ralf-Bernd Klösgen announced the next meeting, which will be held in Halle in 2025, which we are excited about already.
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March 2024
Sayali Hanamghar and Chris Schwier, Synthetic Biology of Photosynthetic Organisms, Matthias Schleiden Institute, Friedrich Schiller University Jena