7th SPPS PhD Student Conference already this year We are happy to announce that the 7th SPPS PhD Student Conference will take place already this autumn, from the 12th to the 15th September 2012. For the first time in history the conference will be held in Estonia, in Laulasmaa. The conference venue is located amidst beautiful pine forest and seashore with the singing sands of Laulasmaa just a short walk away. Read more.... Report from the Global Plant Council (GPC) meeting in China The 2nd Annual Meeting of the Global Plant Council (GPC) took place last summer in the Chinese city of Qingdao and was hosted by the Chinese Society of Plant Biology. GPC is an international coalition of 20 plant science societies and 14 of them were represented at the meeting. The purpose of GPC is to use the expertise of its members to address problems and identify solutions to global issues like hunger, health and climate change where plants in one way or another can play a critical role. The main focus of the meeting was to identify these problems. Read more.... Detailed report from the SPPS Congress A detailed report from the XXIV SPPS Congress in Stavanger has been prepared by Natalie von der Lehr, who attended the event from 20-25 August 2011. The report is split up in several sections that you can read by following the links below. Saturday 20th Sunday 21st Monday 22nd Tuesday 23rd Wednesday 24th Thursday 25th You can also read a short summary about the congress here Read more.... SPPS General Assembly On the second last day of the SPPS Congress in Stavanger, Norway, 35 participants retracted for the General Assembly. This is normally held biannually in connection to the congress, but as SPPS hosted and arranged the FESPB Congress in 2008, the usual schedule was temporarily interrupted, and accordingly this General Assembly was the first since 2008 and the previous one in 2005. President Jaakko Kangasjärvi opened the meeting and after a few formal procedures he went on to present the activity report from 2008-2011, which was followed by reports from the Journal Responsible (Lisbeth Jonsson) and the auditors. Read more.... EPSO presents: Fascination of Plants Day The European Plant Science Organisation (EPSO) will arrange a special attribute to plants with the Fascination of Plants Day that is scheduled for 18 May 2012. The event will be a Europe-wide initiative to bring back understanding and appreciation of plant science and plant research to the public. All participating plant science and research institutions - including plant breeding companies, farmers associations etc. - are invited to contribute with open lab days, public discussions or press conferences with selected scientists, farmers, plant breeders, environmentalists, ecologists etc. Read more.... Short report from the SPPS Congress in Stavanger In the end of August more than 150 researchers from 24 nations gathered in Stavanger, Norway, to share their latest research regarding plant biology and physiology. The first plenary session by Mike Bushell from the company Syngenta pointed out the need of understanding more about plants in order to be able to supply the increasing world population with food, water and energy. Read more.... 24 nations gather in Stavanger for the SPPS Congress As the deadline for registration has now closed, the organizing committee can sum up the number of scientists that will go to Stavanger 21-25 August and take part in the XXIV SPPS Congress. A total of 157 participants from 24 countries have signed up and all together they will give 37 oral presentations and display 130 posters. This years congress will thereby be much more 'international' than the last ordinary SPPS Congress in 2005 where only 16 nations were represented. The overall number of participants is on par with previous congresses, and it is an almost ideal number that allows for both an intimate atmosphere that stimulates contacts and discussions as well as an international outreach where you have plenty of opportunity to meet other scientists that share your research interests. Read more.... Join the SPPS General Assembly If you are among the 157 participants at the upcoming congress in Stavanger, SPPS would like to encourage you to take part in the General Assembly that takes place on Wednesday 24th. In addition to all the regular items (including discharge and election of the 7 Council members), the present Council will propose a reformation of the SPPS membership rules, so you will be able to sign up for a 5 year membership fee option in addition to the normal annual membership fee. Another interesting topic will be the election of the first regular members of the newly established SPPS Education Committee. Read more....   Share your meetings   Here you can browse meetings, that have been posted by other users, or you can post your own meeting by simply clicking the button below.   Location: Start: End:     Faculty of Landscape Planning, Horticulture and Agricultural Sciences, SLU, Sweden SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences or Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet) is a university seated under the Ministry for Rural Affairs and, accordingly, is highly focused on research in biological resources and production. With a total staff of 2900, 700 graduate students and 4000 undergraduate students, the university deals with almost all topics related to agriculture, forestry and food industry to environmental questions, veterinary medicine and biotechnology. SLU is divided into four faculties located at four main campuses spread around the country: Landscape Planning, Horticulture and Agricultural Sciences - Alnarp Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science - Skara and Uppsala Natural Resources and Agriculture Sciences - Uppsala - see SPPS Newsletter 12/2007 Forest Sciences - Umeå - see SPPS Newsletter 10/2004 In this issue of the SPPS Newsletter we will present the Faculty of Landscape Planning, Horticulture and Agricultural Sciences, which is located at the campus in Alnarp in the southernmost part of Sweden Read more.... Cell, Molecular Biology and Genomics Group, NTNU, Norway Where Norway starts to narrow, at 63° north, is the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Located in Trondheim with a population of about 165,000, the university's 20,000 students make a significant contribution to the city life. Despite its name, studies at NTNU are not limited to science and technology, so if you are into arts, humanities, music, social sciences, management or economics you need not go any further. Plant biology also has its place here and most research in this field is led by professor Atle Bones. Read more.... Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology, Research Centre Flakkebjerg, Denmark After a major reorganization of the Danish universities in 2007, Research Centre Flakkebjerg became part of Aarhus University. The research centre, named after its location at a small village in the Western part of Zealand, used to belong to the governmental research institution Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences (DIAS), but with the new organisational model this institution was laid down. Changes are not over, however, and it has already been decided that within five years all activities should move to the university's premises in Aarhus, which are now 215 km away. Read more.... Plant Biotechnology, University of Eastern Finland University of Eastern Finland is the youngest university in the country and only came to existence in January 2010 after a merger of the two former universities in Kuopio and Joensuu. About 200 km separate the two campuses in each of the two mid-eastern cities: Joensuu close to the Russian border and Kuopio inland at the same latitude. With 14,000 students and an annual budget of €200 million, the university is the third or fourth biggest in Finland, depending on your scale of measurement. Read more.... Plant science institutes in Estonia In late September, SPPS Newsletter had a chance to visit Estonia, so we decided to broaden up our regular Scandinavian research institute-section to include the Baltic neighbor. Estonia has a strong position in plant research, which is carried out at several locations. The capital, Tallinn, is home to Tallinn University of Technology where Erkki Truve is Head of the Chair at Department of Gene Technology. Moving 150 km southeast will take you to Jõgeva Plant Breeding Institute, which is an autonomous research and development institute under the Ministry of Agriculture. Read more.... Department of Biology, University of Tromsø Well above the arctic circle in Norway you can find University of Tromsø and no other university in the world is closer to the Northpole. Historically, it dates back to 1826 where 'Høgskolen i Tromsø' was founded and to 1968 where 'Universitetet i Tromsø' was established. These two institutions eventually merged last year and formed the present university. It has around 9.000 students and 2.500 employees, which means that 17% of the population of Tromsø is directly engaged with the university. The six faculties cover most aspects of science and within the Faculty of Science and Technology is the Department of Biology with its three research groups: Plant Physiology and Microbiology Ecological Botany Ecological Zoology The Plant Physiology and Microbiology group has a scientific staff of around 25 and is headed by Professor Mette Svenning. She is working primarily with symbiotic nitrogen fixating as well as methane oxidizing bacteria native to the arctics. Like many of the other research groups her work take a Nordic approach and studies the adaptations to light, temperature and other climatic characteristics of the far north. Read more.... Department of Botany, Stockholm University, Sweden Plant biology has a very prominent position at Stockholm University where around 100 scientist are engaged at the Department of Botany. The department is situated in what used to be King Karl XI's royal game park and the area - now known as Lilla Frescati named after the Italian city of Frascati - is still an urban park. The first plant scientists moved in in 1964 and have since expanded their activities considerably. Read more.... Global Plant Council - Research to save the planet Representatives for 16 plant science societies met this summer in Honolulu, Hawaii and established the Global Plant Council, which has the ambitious goal to deliver research to save the planet. Among the plant societies taking this demanding step was SPPS, so we take the liberty to present the new Global Plant Council under our regular section Scandinavian research institute. SPPS was represented by council member Tom Hamborg Nielsen who is associate professor at University of Copenhagen, and SPPS Newsletter had the chance to meet him. You can read the interview below, but first we will give you a brief description of the thoughts that laid the ground for the Global Plant Council. Read more.... Department of Photochemistry and Molecular Science, Uppsala University, Sweden Photosynthesis and other photochemical reactions are key to most activities at the Department of Photochemistry and Molecular Science at Uppsala University in Sweden. Artificial photosynthesis is the common theme that connects the approximately 50 scientists - 15 senior scientists, 10 postdocs and 20 PhD students - who are engaged in a number of highly interdisciplinary project groups looking at the chemical processes that will ultimately be required to harvest solar energy in a form that can be readily used by mankind. Read more.... PUMPKIN, Centre for Membrane Pumps in Cells and Disease, Denmark Some goals are just too ambitious to meet for a single research group. Deciphering the 3 dimensional structure of complex proteins not only requires the expertise in x-ray crystallography but also a unique knowledge of the proteins biochemistry and the molecular biological processes it participates in. Bearing this in mind, PUMPKIN, Centre for Membrane Pumps in Cells and Disease, was established in 2007 as a highly interdisciplinary research centre funded by the Danish National Research Foundation. The PUMPKIN laboratories are situated both at the University of Aarhus and the University of Copenhagen, and their research is focused on five ion pumps that are fundamental to life and are present in all cells of either plants, animals and bacteria. These are the P-type ATPases pumping either sodium/potassium, proton/potassium, calcium, protons or heavy metals over the the plasma membrane or internal membranes. Read more.... Wood Development Group, Helsinki Within reach of the vast Finnish woodlands, the Wood Development Group resides at the Institute of Biotechnology at Helsinki University. The group is headed by Ykä Helariutta and comprises currently 5 postdocs, 7 graduate students and 2 technicians as well as a number of under-graduate students and occasional visitors. Their common interest is the genetic and molecular basis of wood development, and although the research is of fundamental character it contributes with valuable knowledge for the forest industry on how trees can be grown and their wood processed. Read more.... Plastid AS, University of Stavanger, Norway Most of the research in natural sciences at the University of Stavanger is related to chemistry, and this is no coincidence as the rich Norwegian oil- and gasfields in the North Sea are not far away. But some room has been spared for plant sciences and last year this resulted in a biotech spin-off company, Plastid AS. The company expresses proteins in chloroplasts of transgenic plants that have been subject to plastid transformation. The aim is to produce known proteins for research, aqua cultures, feed producers and the pharmaceutical industry as well as to design novel proteins for specific uses. Read more.... Plant Biology and Forest Genetics, SLU, Uppsala, Sweden The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences - or SLU, its Swedish abbreviation, as they like to call themselves in all languages - is a large research entity with around 2600 employees in four main locations. The strategic areas comprise Food, Animals, Forests, Rural and Urban development and includes a large proportion of the country's best plant research groups. Some of these are located in Umeå at the Umeå Plant Science Centre, which has been covered in a previous article in SPPS Newsletter. The other center for plant research at SLU is the Department of Plant Biology and Forest Genetics, which is located in Uppsala. Read more.... CARB - Centre for Carbohydrate Recognition and Signalling, Aarhus, Denmark Less than a year ago, CARB was announced as a new Centre of Excellence by the Danish National Research Foundation. CARB (Centre for Carbohydrate Recognition and Signalling) is headed by Professor Jens Stougaard at University of Aarhus, and most researchers from the new centre come from his group at the Department of Molecular Biology. However, Professor Knud Jørgen Jensen from University of Copenhagen (Denmark), Professor Herman Spaink from University of Leiden (The Netherlands) and Professor Clive Ronson from University of Otago (New Zealand) do also participate. Read more.... Laboratory of Plant Physiology and Molecular Biology, Turku, Finland If you ever go visit someone in outer space, remember to stop by at Turku and pick up some flowers or other photosynthetic organisms. One of the many aspects of plant biology they study is namely the suitability of higher plants and microalgae for use as biological life support systems under the harsh conditions on Mars or other distant destinations in space. Read more.... NARC, Norwegian Arabidopsis Research Centre Norway has committed itself to the new omics technologies. Ten national functional genomics platforms have been established through the Norwegian Research Council's Functional Genomics (FUGE) initiative. The platforms are responsible for developing state-of-the-art technologies within their fields and share this expertise with other scientists so they can perform the most advanced genomic research. Read more.... Göteborg University, Sweden Göteborg is the second largest town in Sweden, but its university is the largest in the whole of Scandinavia. With 51.000 students, 5.221 employees, 8 faculties and 70 departments it is uniquely wide-ranging and offers the most comprehensive selection of courses in Sweden. The university dates back to 1891 and experienced rapid expansion during the 1950s and 1960s - increasing the number of students from only 500 to 21.000 in two decades. Read more.... TRAP LABS (Transport Physiology Laboratories), Copenhagen Fundamental to all plants is the ability to take up nutrients from the soil and transport them along with other solutes to whatever part of the plant they are needed. At TRAP LABS, these basic physiological processes have been the focus for intense research since Michael Gjedde Palmgren joined KVL (The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University) as a Professor in 1998. Read more.... Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB), Oslo Founded in 1859 as Norges Landbrukshøgskole (NLH or Agricultural University of Norway), the Norwegian University of Life Sciences emerged in 2005 after a reorganization that gave it recognition as a real, research based university. Its historic roots attached in agriculture, the research at Universitetet for Miljø- og Biovetenskap (UMB) - as it is called in the local language - focuses on quality, technology and environmental friendliness of agri- and aquaculture. Read more.... Plant Signal Research, University of Helsinki If you want to know anything about Finnish research in plant molecular biology you should definitely talk to Professor Tapio Palva who is heading the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Plant Signal Research. Read more.... Lund University, Sweden When Denmark gave up Skåne, Halland and Blekinge - the southernmost provinces of modern Sweden - in 1658, the Swedish government decided to celebrate the reunion by establishing a university in the region, so as to minimize the Danish influence. Read more.... Plant Biotech Denmark, Copenhagen Plant Biotech Denmark (PBD) is not a typical research institute. In fact, it has only two employees and you will have a hard time finding just a single Petri dish or Eppedorf tube. Read more.... The NTNU Plant Genetics Group, Trondheim Well below the polar circle, where Norway narrows into a thin land strip, in the city of Trondheim, is the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU. Despite the city has only 150.000 inhabitants, the university has around 20.000 students and 3500 employees. Read more.... Plant Stress Group, University of Helsinki Ozone not only gives the forest a clean and fresh smell, it is also an air pollutant that mimics plant-pathogen interactions and induce cell death in plants. Read more.... Umeå Plant Science Centre By the end of the 1990's, two of the strongest experimental plant research departments in Sweden were the Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology at SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) in Umeå and the Department of Plant Physiology at Umeå University. Read more.... PlaCe - Center for Molecular Plant Physiology From its very beginning, PlaCe was intended to be a center of excellence and this has certainly come true. PlaCe - Center for Molecular Plant Physiology - provides research of the highest international standard and is highly competitive: more than 200 articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals since the launch six years ago. Read more.... Design and technical solution © 2005 Palmgren kommunikation.