Sponsorship Information
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Background
Auxin was one of the first plant hormones to be discovered almost 75 years ago. This hormone has been implicated in virtually every aspect of plant growth and development from embryogenesis, through all stages of vegetative development, to formation of reproductive structures and growth of the gametophyte. The regulation of auxin signalling and transport are central to a fundamental understanding of plant growth and development. After many years of slow progress, the last 15 years have seen remarkable advances in our understanding of auxin biology. Recent research highlights include the identification of auxin receptors, modelling of auxin-dependent regulation of root and shoot meristem function, the identification of protein kinases and endocytic pathways that regulate auxin transport, and characterization of novel auxin biosynthetic pathways. A search of PubMed with the term “auxin” recovers 1678 publications during the last 3 years alone (as of February 7, 2012), which is more then 10% increased compared to the years before and indicative of an extremely robust auxin research community and the broad role of auxin in plant growth. In recognition of these exciting advances, international meetings focusing on auxin research have been held in 2000, 2004 and 2008 in Corsica, Crete and Marrakesh respectively. Because the pace of discovery in auxin biology continues to accelerate, we propose to follow up on these very successful meetings with “Auxin 2012.” This meeting will be held on the Big Island of Hawai‘i December 9th - December 14th.
AUXIN 2012
The small size of the AUXIN 2012 meeting will promote informal discussions and interactions among the participants. The meeting will consist of 9 sessions as outlined in the proposed program. We will feature Keynote Addresses with talks by Joanne Chory, Philip Benfey and Masao Tasaka who will put the auxin field in a broader perspective of refined signal transduction and whole genome analysis based on recent breakthrough discoveries. The main body of the meeting will consist of sessions covering diverse aspects of auxin biology including transport, signalling, and metabolism. In addition, sessions will focus on the diverse roles of auxin in aspects of plant development such as meristem function, plant architecture, vascular development and embryogenesis. Mathematical and computational modelling of auxin-regulated development is another area of key interest in the field and will be well-represented. Exciting advances have been made in each of these areas as evidenced by the number of major review articles published within the last two years. The abstracts of the meeting will be printed and a bound copy will be distributed to all the participants. In addition, the abstracts will be available online.
Program
The proposed program lists 30 confirmed invited speakers who will be distributed through 9 sessions. The speakers were chosen based on their recent contributions and represent 14 countries. Each session will include these invited speakers with 30-minute talks and 15 minute shorter talks of which 18 will be chosen from the submitted abstracts. Each chair will introduce the subject of the session and will encourage discussion. In addition, poster sessions will take place on Monday, and Tuesday afternoons. All participants will be encouraged to bring posters.
Your Support & Sponsorship
The auxin meeting is entirely a community affair, with no learned society infrastructure for backup- so we are completely dependent on our own fund raising. We like to create opportunities for enhanced visibility by offering ‘platinum’, ‘gold’ and ‘silver’ sponsorship contracts, in which you will, by a donorship of $25,000,- , $15,000,- and $10,000,- respectively, be recognized as main sponsor of this key meeting in the plant field. If such an ambitious sponsorship is not compatible with your interests, any way you are able to help would be much appreciated. For example, you could sponsor a specific speaker or provide funds to support PhD students to attend the meeting We would of course be happy to include logos/promotional material as appropriate.