Advances in plant reproduction – from gametes to seeds
Organised by: Sílvia Coimbra (University of Porto, Portugal), Ana Lúcia Lopes (University of Porto, Portugal), Ana Marta Pereira (University of Milan, Italy)
Agriculture depends on seeds and seeds on sexual plant reproduction. Understanding the factors regulating sexual plant reproduction is a complex biological process and currently an essential need to improve agricultural productivity. This plant satellite meeting – Advances in plant reproduction – is the result of the demanding investment efforts made in the last years, by the plant reproduction scientific community, in understanding the basis of reproductive traits and its relationship with the plant phenotypic plasticity. Over recent years, ongoing study of plant reproduction has addressed fundamental questions, from a molecular point of view, regarding the control of ovule development, germline development and function, pollen grain germination and pollen tube growth, fertilisation and polyspermy block, embryogenesis and endosperm development, seed and fruit development. The meeting will bring together researchers with their most recent high quality investigation findings through these main topics, immediately adjusted for sharing among the scientific community.
The huge combination of experimental skills, from bioinformatics to genetics and epigenetics, from development to structure, from molecular biology to cell biology – all of these complementary procedures – will be exploited to improve the understanding of the reproductive mechanisms in plants, allowing the future transfer of these knowledge in the enhancement of seed quality and yield.
The meeting will aim to gather enthusiastic experienced researchers, PhD students, early career researchers and academics within the fields of plant reproduction and development, but is also intended for plant reproduction publishers, companies and stakeholders that will be able to disseminate this new shared knowledge worldwide.
Confirmed speakers
- Cristina Ferrandiz (CSIC-UPV, Spain)
- Emidio Albertini (University of Perugia, Italy)
- José Feijó (University of Maryland, USA)
- Lucia Colombo (University of Milan, Italy)
- Pilar Testillano (CSIS, Spain)
- Simona Masiero (University of Milan, Italy)
- Simon Hiscock (University of Oxford and Director of the Botanical Garden, UK)