Meeting Proposal: 3rd International Brassinosteroid Conference, Aug 1-4, 2018, San Diego, CA, USA

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Brassinosteroids (BRs) are critical plant hormones that not only regulate plant growth and development, but also plant responses to various environmental stresses. Application of BRs has been reported to improve crop yield and stress tolerance and transgenic overexpression of BR biosynthesis genes have been shown to increase crop yield. A full understanding of BR functions, signaling and its cross-talk with other signaling pathways is therefore crucial to reap the benefits of BRs in agriculture. The 3rd International Brassinosteroid Conference is organized by the BR hormone research community with help from the American Society of Plant Biologists' (ASPB) Meeting Management Services. The goals of the conferences are: (a) to bridge the gap between traditional approaches and systems biology/novel techniques; (b) to visualize new ways to test hypotheses regarding BR signaling; (c) to assess the current status of the field and articulate important questions that remain outstanding; (d) to promote interactions and facilitate new collaborations and (e) to inspire young scientists to pursue BR-related research. The NSF grant will be used to secure the conference venue and to support students, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty members to attend the conference from US Institutions. A meeting report will be published, which will be written by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows under the supervision of international organizing committee members.Molecular genetic studies in the past decades have determined and characterized both BR biosynthesis and signaling pathways. Recently the field has made significant progress using new technologies and through collaborations with other scientific disciplines. New BR signaling components have been discovered and the mechanisms of BR perception and signal transduction have been depicted at the molecular and in a few cases at the atomic levels. At the same time, genomics, proteomics and systems biology approaches are revealing complex regulatory networks through which BRs regulate thousands of genes and crosstalk with other signaling pathways in the regulation of plant growth and responses to both abiotic (such as drought, cold, heat) and biotic (bacterial, fungal and viral) stresses. The conference will bring together some of the top scientists, including some young and new scientists to the field, to share their exciting new findings and promote further progress. The meeting will foster new collaborations between different groups, and different disciplines to facilitate future discoveries and to explore ways to transform current knowledge into agricultural products.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.