CONFERENCE: 8th International Symposium on Nitrogen Fixation with Non-Legumes, 3-7 December 2000, Sydney, Australia: Travel Funds

第八届非豆科植物固氮国际研讨会将把世界各地的科学家聚集到澳大利亚悉尼，进行为期五天的讨论，讨论使用固氮菌为非豆科植物提供必需元素氮的可能性。虽然豌豆和豆类等豆类植物通过与名为根瘤菌的固氮菌联系在一起获得了大量的氮，但对不同植物家族中共生固氮的了解要少得多。最近的发展使一些固氮菌更有可能在减少草种(和谷物生产)对化肥的依赖方面发挥作用，化肥是一种昂贵的农业径流水的主要污染物。这些细菌被称为内生菌，因为它们生活在(内生)植物(植物)内，不是在豆科植物根瘤那样的分化结构中，而是在它们的植物宿主的细胞间隙和维管系统中。美国、巴西、澳大利亚、阿根廷、德国、以色列、印度和菲律宾的科学家正在研究内生植物的不同方面。还需要回顾和讨论的是将固氮基因从细菌转移到植物中，使植物有一天可以自己固定氮，从而绕过对细菌共生体或内生菌的需求。英国最近的工作是将几个固氮基因(从所需的22个左右的基因中)转移到一种名为衣藻的原始植物中，这代表着朝着这个方向迈出了一步。在研讨会结束时，将向公众和科学界分发最新技术的总结。国家科学基金会的这笔拨款将资助8名美国科学家前往悉尼。他们都是受邀的全体或会议演讲者，或者是青年科学家(博士后)，对他们来说，参加这样的研讨会将有助于推进他们的职业生涯。

The 8th International Symposium on Nitrogen Fixation with Non-Legumes will bring scientists throughout the world to Sydney, Australia, for five days of discussion about the potential to use nitrogen fixing bacteria for supplying the essential element, nitrogen, to non-leguminous plants. While the legume plants such as peas and beans are known to gain significant amounts of N from association with nitrogen-fixing bacteria called Rhizobia, much less is known about symbiotic nitrogen fixation in different families of plants. Recent developments have now made it more likely that the some nitrogen-fixing bacteria might play a role in making the growth of grass species (and cereal production) less dependent on chemical fertilizer which is expensive and a major pollutant of agricultural run-off water. These bacteria are called endophytes because they live inside (endo) plants (phyte), not in a differentiated structure like legume root nodues but within the intercellular spaces and vascular system of their plant host. Scientists in the USA, Brazil, Australia, Argentina, Germany, Israel, India, and The Phillipines are studying different aspects of endophytes.Also to be reviewed and discussed is the idea of transferring nitrogen fixation genes from bacteria into plants such that plants could themselves fix nitrogen one day, by-passing the need for bacterial symbionts or endophytes. Recent work from the UK on the transfer of a few nitrogen fixation genes (from among the 22 or so needed) into a primitive plant called Chlamydomonas represents a step in this direction. At the conclusion of the Symposium, a summing up of the state of the art will be disseminated to the public as well as to the scientific community. The grant from the National Science Foundation will support the travel of 8 USA scientists to Sydney. All of them are invited plenary or session speakers or are young scientists (post-docs) for whom attending a symposium such as this will help advance their careers.