The registration form for Monogram workshop is now available online.

PlantSci 2012; the UK Plant Sciences Federation Inaugural Research Conference
18-19th April 2012
John Innes Conference Centre, Norwich.

Registration is now open for the inaugural conference of the Society of Biology’s Special Interest Group; the UK Plant Sciences Federation. The conference will showcase the wealth of plant science that is being undertaken across the UK, from cell biology to ecology and basic research to the field, and will provide an arena for plant scientists from across the UK to come together and share their knowledge and expertise.

Early Bird registration closes on the 3rd february

We are pleased to announce that Sir John Beddington, Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government, will be giving the opening address, and speakers include Sandy Knapp (Natural History Museum), Julian Hibberd (University of Cambridge), Ian Graham (CNAP), Bill Davies (University of Lancaster) Richard Summer (RAGT) and Giles Oldroyd (John Innes Centre) to name but a few.

Please also join us for the conference dinner at Delia Smith’s Restaurant on the 18th April, an ideal opportunity to meet new colleagues and share ideas over food and drinks.
Booking details are on the Registration page.
To register visit: http://wwwplantsci2012-esearch.eventbrite.co.uk/?srnk=1&ebtv=C

For a full conference programme, sponsorship details and further information please visit UK PlantSci 2012

UK PlantSci2012 is a SEB Symposium, thanks to our main meeting sponsor the Society of Experimental Biology.

So don’t miss out on the opportunity to attend this great meeting, early bird registration closes on the 3rd February so make sure you register soon to take advantage the reduced registration fees.

We look forward to seeing you in Norwich
Ruth

Registration for the UK Plant Sciences Annual Conference is now open. 18-19th April, John Innes Centre, Norwich. Register here

Following the Wheat Initiative proposal (previously International Research Initiative for Wheat Improvement) adopted by the Agriculture Ministers during the G20 meeting in June 2011, the Wheat Initiative scientific board has commissioned a report about the development of a Wheat Information System (called hereafter WheatIS) to support the international wheat research community.
This report will include a summary of the results from a community-wide consultation.
The report will make recommendations about the strategy to develop the WheatIS around genetics and genomics data, as well as a view on how agronomic data should be integrated.

This web survey aims at collecting the wheat scientific community needs.
The survey can be found at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/wheat-information-system

Researchers from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Sustainable Bioenergy Centre (BSBEC) have discovered a family of genes that could help us breed grasses with improved properties for diet and bioenergy.

The research was carried out by a team from the University of Cambridge and Rothamsted Research, which receives strategic funding from BBSRC. Their findings are published today (Tuesday 17 Jan) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Dear Monogram Community

As you hopefully all know the Monogram Network Workshop will take place at Aberystwyth, UK from lunchtime on Monday the 26th March 2012 until lunchtime on Wednesday the 28th March 2012.

The programme will be as follows:

Monday 26th March

Arrival from 1.00pm for registration and light refreshments.
Conference to begin at 2.00pm – Welcome from IBERS Director Wayne Powell

Session 1: Breeding Methodologies and Genotyping Tools

Plenary talk on Food Security from 5.00-6.00pm

Tuesday 27th March

Session 2: High Throuhput and Field Phenotyping

Session 3: Value Chains and Quality Traits

Tour of Gogerddan Campus and the Phenomics Centre 4.00pm

Conference Dinner at the Marine Hotel 7.30pm

Wednesday 28th March

Session 4: International Development and International Collaborative Projects

Lunch at 12, Depart 1.00pm


We are currently seeking poster and oral presentations for these topics including from PhD and post-doctoral researchers. Where possible we would like a mix of longer talks and some shorter talks on recent grants funded in these topics. Please contact us if you or someone in your lab is interested in presenting by 31st January so we can finalise the programme in early February. Registration for the workshop will open shortly and we will be sending separate instructions on how do this.

Best regards

Iain Donnison

Aberystwyth Organizing Group: Ian Armstead (ipa@aber.ac.uk), Iain Donnison (isd@aber.ac.uk), John Doonan (jhd2@aber.ac.uk), Matt Hegarty (ayh@aber.ac.uk), Catherine Howarth (cnh@aber.ac.uk), Glyn Jenkins (gmj@aber.ac.uk), Caron Jones (clj15@aber.ac.uk), Luis Mur (lum@aber.ac.uk),

UK PlantSci 2012 will be held at the John Innes Centre Norwich 18-19th April 2012. http://www.plantsci2012.org.uk/

The major meeting sponsor for UK PlantSci 2012 is the Society of Experimental Biology.

UK PlantSci 2012 is the inaugural conference of the UK Plant Sciences Federation which has been established to showcase the wealth of plants science undertaken in the UK

The UKPSF has recently been established as a special interest group of the Society of Biology to provide “One Voice” for all those involved in Plant Science R&D, education and training, to improve interactions and communication across the UK plant science sector and with wider society.

We already have a great line up of speakers confirmed including : - Sandy Knapp (Natural History Museum), Julian Hibberd (University of Cambridge), Ian Graham (CNAP), Bill Davies (University of Lancaster) and Giles Oldroyd (John Innes Centre) to name but a few.
To view a full programme visit http://www.plantsci2012.org.uk/PlantSci_2012/Programme.html

We are also very pleased to announce that Sir John Beddington, Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government, will be giving the opening address at UK PlantSci 2012.


So with all this on offer don’t miss out on the opportunity to attend this unique event. Register now at http://wwwplantsci2012.eventbrite.co.uk/

We hope to see you all in Norwich next April.

A one day conference to celebrate the founding of The Plant Breeding Institute, Wednesday 20th June 2012
held at the Conference Centre, John Innes Centre, Norwich NR4 7UH

Dear UK wheat community,

Some of you may have received the email (below) from Eduard Akhunov about the 50K Illumina chip currently being designed. The wheat pre-breeding Lola is working with Eduard to help generate the best chip possible and to ensure the chip carry’s SNPs which are useful on UK and European lines as well as lines from around the globe.

As you will see from the email Eduard is asking for commitments for the chip; we at Bristol intend to go for a number chips (probably in the range of between 1,000 and 2,000). These chips will be used on the wheat pre-breeding Lola. Could I ask everybody who responds to Eduard to make sure that they state, when they commit to these chips, that they 1. Do not purchase any for use in the wheat pre-breeding Lola as it is Bristol’s responsibility to do this and 2. When ordering for any other UK project use, clearly state that the chips are for use in a UK-based project. By stating that the chips are to be used in a UK-based project you will help the UK to get a better deal and ensure that its contribution to this global effort is recognised.

It should be noted that as Eduard has said that the sequences contained on the chip will be made public when the chip is synthesised and so you will not have to wait until publications start to appear.

Finally, please note that the chips can be used anywhere and do not have to be used in a pre-designated screening lab. There are several such screening labs in the UK and there is also one at Bristol, so if you do wish to make use of the high quality service offered by Bristol to use these chips please do let me know.

Keith Edwards

Email from Eduard to follow:

Dear All,

We would like to provide you an update on the status of 50K assay development. The SNP discovery has been finished. There are currently several large SNP datasets generated by US, Australian and UK groups. We are working with UK group (Keith Edwards) on cross comparing datasets to assess the fraction of shared polymorphisms. This will define the final content of 50K assay and take about a week to finish. We would like to maximize the utility of this array for genotyping populations from US, Australia and UK. Depending on the final per sample cost of genotyping we will consider the possibility of including larger number of SNPs on array.

SNPs will be mapped using populations developed by crossing parents from the discovery panels. For example, a large fraction of SNPs will be selected to be polymorphic in the MAGIC 8-way mapping population to increase the number of mappable SNPs.

Currently, it is important for us to know how many users have funds to pay for their genotyping experiment within next several months and how many samples wheat community can submit for genotyping. This will help us to determine the cost of genotyping/sample. Again, we may consider the possibility of increasing the number of SNPs on the array depending on the expected order size and associated cost of genotyping per sample.

FYI: below is approximate cost of genotyping per sample with 50K assay depending on the total size of order:

1152 samples - $322/sample
2000 samples - $208/sample
3000 samples - $152/sample
4000 samples - $152/sample
5,000 samples - $125/sample
10,000 samples - $86/sample

Please, send your requests for genotyping with the indication of the number of lines to Cindy Lawley (clawley@illumina.com) and Eduard Akhunov (eakhunov@ksu.edu). Once the design is submitted Illumina will start sending invoices.

The design file will be made publicly available.
Best regards,
Eduard
Eduard Akhunov
Department of Plant Pathology
4024 Throckmorton Plant Sciences Center
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506
e-mail eakhunov@ksu.edu
phone: 785-532-1342
fax: 785-532-5692

You might be aware that recently 41 Swedish scientists published an article (attached) in a leading Swedish Newspaper expressing dismay, bewilderment and anger that legislation of GM crops is not based on science, ignores recent evidence, and blocks opportunities to increase agricultural sustainability. They highlighted the irrational and unwarranted obstacles that obstruct the deployment of this useful technology and prevent the development of innovations that will increase yields and reduce the environmental impact of agriculture. The translated article is attached.

UK plant scientists have initiated an online petition http://bit.ly/q3FoIr to call on Europe to change GM legislation and adopt science-based GM regulations.

The petition ask for those that share views outlined by the Swedish plant scientists to endorse the campaign by signing up at

Bristol has updated its cerealsdb and wheatbp web sites, these can now be access from the Monogram web site by clicking on either of the two cerealsdb or the wheatbp icons. This should take you through to the modified sites.

The cerealsdb web site now carries the wheat SNP database where you can download individual SNP primers as well as the entire dataset (sequences, primers, genotypes, etc) chromosome by chromosome.

On the wheatbp site you will see that we have also updated the site so that it is more interesting to students, farmers, etc.

In the next few weeks there will be further upgrades to the Monogram site including portals to the wheat prebreeding LOLA/WISP and the wheat CIRC projects.

Keith J. Edwards
Functional Genomics Group
OB120
School of Biological Sciences
University of Bristol
Woodland Road
Bristol

Dear all :
I have looked for the fault with the registration application and found one issue which I have resolved. I have tested the application with IE8, Firefox and Safari and so far I have found no problem - so I am glad to say that to the best of my knowledge, it is now possible to register to the Monogram Website. Please let me know by email if you are still experiencing problem. Best regards. Nathalie

Dear all, following a comment made at the Monogram workshop, I have tested the registration process from a MacBook and indeed, it seems that the registration does not work from Apple Safari and firefox.
The login however works well.
If you do not have access to a PC and want to register, you are welcome to send me your credentials and I will register you. I suspect that this situation will not concern too many people.
I will try and sort this out as soon as I am back from the Easter Break. Best regards, and please make sure you keep sending me these helpful comments.
Nathalie

PLEXdb (Plant Expression Database) is a unified public resource for gene expression for plants and plant pathogens. PLEXdb serves as a bridge to integrate new and rapidly expanding gene expression profile data sets with traditional structural genomics and phenotypic data. The integrated tools of PLEXdb allow investigators to use commonalities in plant biology for a comparative approach to functional genomics through use of large-scale expression profiling data sets.

Transcription factors (TFs) regulate gene expression by interacting with promoters of their target genes and are classified into families based on their DNA-binding domains. Genes coding for TFs have been identified in the sequences of model plant genomes...

We are pleased to announce that a new version of our parallel search is now available on the Monogram web site. The Parallel search explores multiple resources at once and brings back all the results on a single page. This feature is available from the home menu in Monogram.

To facilitate networking, monogram offers a way you can share your decision to attend a conference... this is available to registered users..

Dear all,
The new menu gives more space to research and tools. Have a browse and let us know what you think!

Nathalie Castells-Brooke

There is now a new search feature on the Monogram web site. It enables the search of the actual pages on the site and its affiliates hosted on the Monogram server. A quick way to find what you want.

You can find one search box on the home page and one on the search page.

There is also a search engine specific to publications and a parallel search that search in resources outside of monogram.

Still to come, a search engine to find resources held in our database.

Hope this serves you well.

Nathalie Castells-Brooke, Monogram Web Dev.

Dear all, we now have a new feed dedicated to vacancies posted to Monogram. To receive vacancy news, please subscribe to the vacany feed. All feeds are displayed on every page of the Monogram web site.

Logging into Monogram is a great way to help keeping Monogram up to date. It has been possible to add publications to Monogram for quite a while. It is now possible to edit the references. So when your article is finally published, you can submit its final reference. To try that, go to the Publications Page.