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From July 5 to July 9, 2015, the Convention Center of Paris welcomed, for the first time in France, the 26th International Conference on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR). Several members of the Saclay Plant Sciences LabEx played a major role in the organization of this congress supported by the French Society of Plant Biology (Société Française de Biologie Végétale, SFBV).

Let's come back to this important event in the life of SPS...

ICAR is a conference launched in 1965, exactly 50 years before our congress in Paris. In 50 years, there have been 26 editions of this congress which aims at bringing together the international research community working on the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, but also researchers interested in the latest discoveries in plant biology and their potential applications to crops. Since 1995, ICAR is organized annually and, in recent years, a three-year rotation allows the conference to take place alternately in North America, Europe and Asia / Oceania.

In 2015, for the first ICAR in France, the SPS community was highly represented. 92 LabEx members attended the congress, representing almost 10% of the participants. 58 posters and 17 talks (2 to 20 min, in the thematic sessions and workshops) were labeled SPS. In addition, 17 PhD students from SPS laboratories volunteered to help with conference logistics (filling the welcome bags, passing microphones in the conference rooms, etc.) and everyone could notice their dynamism and responsiveness.

To give an idea of ​​the impact of the event, here are some key figures of ICAR 2015:

• About 1,000 participants
• 39 countries represented
• 2/3 of senior researchers and post-docs
• Almost one third of students
• About 50 participants from companies
• 4 plenary sessions
• 15 thematic sessions
• 10 workshops
• A total of 223 talks
• 3 poster sessions
• 573 posters
• 18 booths (companies and non-profit organizations)

As chair of ICAR 2015, Loïc Lepiniec, coordinator of the SPS LabEx, became chair of the Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee (MASC) for the year following the congress. The MASC, created in the 90s, gathers representatives from each member country (26 to date). It aims at coordinating and strengthening collaborations to help the Arabidopsis community make progress on projects that can only succeed through international efforts, while reducing redundant research. This combined and coordinated effort, together with a policy of sharing data, biological material and ideas has established Arabidopsis thaliana as a reference plant and the Arabidopsis community as one of the most active in plant research.

Program

Keynote speakers

• Rob Martienssen, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY USA
• Elliot Meyerowitz, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA USA

Plenary sessions

• Nutrition and metabolism I and II
• Responses to the environment I and II
• Regulation of plant growth and development I and II
• Reproduction : from flowering to seeds I and II

Thematic sessions

• Primary metabolism, photosynthesis, biomass
• Secondary metabolism 
• Biotic interactions
• Abiotic stresses
• Cell biology
• Development
• Hormones and signaling
• Systems biology and new approaches
• Reproduction
• Natural variation and evolution
• Epigenetics
• Genome dynamics
• Transcriptional regulation
• Post-transcriptional / post-translational regulation
• Translational biology and biotechnologies

Download the ICAR poster and full program