2012 Plant Molecular Biology Gordon Research Conference, Holderness School, New Hampshire, July 15-20, 2012

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This award funds the Gordon Research Conference on Plant Molecular Biology to be held at the Holderness School in New Hampshire on July 15-20, 2012. An important aspect of this conference is that it provides an opportunity for up to 36 invited speakers to interact closely for five days with about 140 participants that include graduate students, postdoctoral trainees, and young faculty from universities all over the USA and the world, including scientists in the private and public sector. A unique aspect of this year's meeting involves the inclusion of the topic, Genomic Approaches to Plant Signaling, which highlights some of the most important recent discoveries in plant biology. For example, the scientists that discovered the receptor protein for the hormone abscisic acid will be presenting their latest work. This discovery, which Science magazine described as the second most important discovery in all of science in 2009, offers many new opportunities for improving the drought tolerance of plants. This goal is extremely important since with an increasing world population and a diminished supply of water and arable land, there are increasing pressures on the world's agricultural capabilites in terms of producing food and fiber for its population. In addition, recent discoveries of new ways of breeding plants for this trait and many other important and useful traits will be presented. There are a great many broader impacts of this conference. For example, collaboration is increasingly important in plant science and the sessions have been designed to foster interactions that nurture collaboration. The conference also seeks to train young scientists, our country's future scientific leaders, in a molecular understanding of the whole plant's basic mechanisms rather than one or two specialized areas of study. The conference thus meets the important need of providing a broader view of basic plant biology so that our future plant scientists are not so overly specialized that they cannot 'see the forest for the trees.'