Meeting: 5th Pan American Plant Membrane Biology Workshop June 1-5, 2015; San Pedro de Aracama, Chile

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When people eat, they consume organisms that provide them with calories, amino acids, and essential mineral ions required for their bodies to continue to function normally. People do this primarily by either consuming plants directly or by consuming animals that have eaten plants that have accumulated these essential biological molecules. But how do plants mine the soil for essential mineral ions that often are present in extremely limiting concentrations? This occurs because plants have evolved specific membrane proteins that can efficiently recognize and selectively transport these mineral ions from the extracellular environment into the cell. The understanding of these processes, and the proteins involved in this selective enrichment of biologically important mineral ions within plant cells, is undergoing a revolutionary change, based on both the recent ability to identify potential proteins involved in these enrichment processes using genome-based methods, and the recent understanding of the complex membrane sorting events associated with the appropriate regulation of these biological processes. This workshop is aimed at supporting interaction and transfer of knowledge between two previously distinct biological research areas, the study of the sorting of proteins between membranes in plant cells, and the study of the mechanisms by which membrane proteins selectively transport essential ions (and other small molecules) across biological membranes. It is anticipated that the scientific interactions supported by this proposal will facilitate advances that will prove important to expanding the understanding how plants are able to selectively accumulate biologically important mineral ions and small molecules.This application is for partial support of the 5th Pan American Membrane Biology Workshop to be held in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile June 1-5, 2015. This proposed workshop will focus on topics covering the most important breakthroughs in understanding both basic and applied aspects of plant membrane biology. This meeting will largely focus on transport, signaling and trafficking, as these fields of investigation are expanding at an extremely rapid pace. Given the importance of membrane biology and its potential to continue to make groundbreaking discoveries of broad fundamental importance and the large scientific demand for opportunities to communicate and interact, the topic of this meeting is both exciting and timely. The specific objectives are to (1) organize and support a meeting on the latest scientific advances in the research area of plant membrane biology (2) promote interactions between scientists and trainees to share new discoveries in the field of membrane biology as it relates to normal growth, development and nutrition and to enhance training and new collaborations that will move the field forward and (3) to directly involve newly independent scientists and trainees including graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, women, minorities and the disabled in the conference. The broader impacts of the conference include providing access to cutting edge science via oral and poster presentations, to allow opportunities for interactions between trainees and established investigators and to encourage and support long-term and significant advances in this important area of research.