SATURDAY and SUNDAY, OCTOBER 8 and 9, 2011. 9AM to 6 PM.

The ninth Annual Symposium in Plant Biology was held on Sat Oct 8th and Sun Oct 9th at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Integrated Science Building. The symposium, “Auxin and Expansion”, examined the essential hormone, auxin, and its relationship to the fundamental process of growth. This symposium was a special two-day event, sponsored by the Plant Biology Graduate Program of UMass and co-sponsored by the Centre for Plant Integrative Biology, University of Nottingham, UK. The meeting was international, with six of the 13 invited speakers traveling from Europe and 15 of the 153 attendees from Europe or Asia. The meeting drew domestic participants from Colleges and Universities throughout the Northeast, including Worcester Polytechnic, University of Vermont, Penn State, Dartmouth, and Harvard, among others. Participants presented more than 50 posters. Attendees included many students, both graduate and undergraduate. The talks and posters were excellent and discussions were long-lived and enthusiastic.

Many thanks to Sinauer Associates for providing materials for the ever-popular book raffle!

SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE FOR SATURDAY, OCT. 8:

8:30 am	Registration - Integrated Sciences Building (ISB) lobby
9:00 am	Welcome and Introductions to talks - ISB auditorium
9:05 am	MALCOLM BENNETT The Centre for Plant Integrative Biology University of Nottingham, UK "Systems analysis of auxin-regulated root gravitropism"
9:55 am	Morning break- ISB lobby. Enter Sinauer Associates book raffle.
10:10 am	THOMAS GUILFOYLE Biochemistry University of Missouri Columbia "Functional Characterization of Conserved Domains/Motifs in Aux/IAA and ARF Transcription Factors."
11:00 am	MARK ESTELLE Section of Cell and Developmental Biology University of California San Diego "Auxin regulation of hypocotyl growth"
12 noon to 1:50 pm	Poster set-up, lunch and poster preview session. 10th floor, Campus Center
2:00 pm	Welcome to the afternoon session - ISB 135 (auditorium)
2:10 pm	STEPHEN FRY Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences University of Edinburgh, UK "The in-vivo action of enzymes that loosen and tighten the plant cell wall"
3:00 pm	JOHN BOYER Marine Biosciences University of Delaware "Cell enlargement, wall deposition, and the role of auxin"
3:50 pm	Drawing for Sinauer Associates book raffle - ISB lobby
4 to 6 pm	Poster session and reception, 10th floor, Campus Center

WORKSHOP PRESENTATIONS, SUNDAY, OCT. 9
Integrated Sciences Building auditorium, Room 135

Symposium coordinators - Tobias Baskin, PB UMass Amherst and Malcolm Bennett, CPIB, Univ. of Nottingham, UK

For more information or questions, send an email to: pb@bio.umass.edu

For information on our past symposiums, click here.