News from the FESPB 2008 congress held in Tampere, Finland The Federation of the European Societies of Plant Biology (FESPB) arranges a large plant biology congress every other year. This year the congress venue was Tampere Hall in the city of Tampere in southern Finland. The congress was organized by the Scandinavian Plant Physiology Society, SPPS, during 17-22 August. In addition to the congress, Tampere hall housed two satellite meetings, MOSS 2008 and PEROXIDASE 2008. Kurt Fagerstedt from Helsinki University reports from the meeting Read more.... Announcing the Plant ROS 2009 conference in Helsinki The Society for Free Radical Research Plant Oxygen Group would like to announce a meeting on reactive oxygen and nitrogen species in plants. Read more....   FESPB Federation of European Societies of Plant Biology is Europes largest society of plant biologists. The aims of FESPB are to advance research, education, and the exchange of information amongst plant biologists within Europe and beyond. FESPB organizes a biannual conference, publishes international plant journals and distributes a newsletter. Go to website....   EPSO European Plant Science Organisation is an independent body that represents more than 50 leading Research Institutions from 23 European countries. EPSO wants to improve impact and visibility of Plant Science in Europe. EPSO's top priorities include facilitating understanding of plant science, boosting funding for basic plant science and co-ordinating research activities. Go to website....   ASPB American Society of Plant Biologists is a professional society devoted to the advancement of the plant sciences. It publishes two world-class journals and organizes conferences, and other activities that are key to the advancement of the science. The mission of ASPB is to promote the growth and development of plant biology, to encourage and publish research in plant biology, and to promote the interests and growth of plant scientists in general. Go to website....   Plastid AS, University of Stavanger, Norway Most of the research in natural sciences at the University of Stavanger is related to chemistry, and this is no coincidence as the rich Norwegian oil- and gasfields in the North Sea are not far away. But some room has been spared for plant sciences and last year this resulted in a biotech spin-off company, Plastid AS. The company expresses proteins in chloroplasts of transgenic plants that have been subject to plastid transformation. The aim is to produce known proteins for research, aqua cultures, feed producers and the pharmaceutical industry as well as to design novel proteins for specific uses. Read more.... Plant Biology and Forest Genetics, SLU, Uppsala, Sweden The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences - or SLU, its Swedish abbreviation, as they like to call themselves in all languages - is a large research entity with around 2600 employees in four main locations. The strategic areas comprise Food, Animals, Forests, Rural and Urban development and includes a large proportion of the country's best plant research groups. Some of these are located in Umeå at the Umeå Plant Science Centre, which has been covered in a previous article in SPPS Newsletter. The other center for plant research at SLU is the Department of Plant Biology and Forest Genetics, which is located in Uppsala. Read more.... CARB - Centre for Carbohydrate Recognition and Signalling, Aarhus, Denmark Less than a year ago, CARB was announced as a new Centre of Excellence by the Danish National Research Foundation. CARB (Centre for Carbohydrate Recognition and Signalling) is headed by Professor Jens Stougaard at University of Aarhus, and most researchers from the new centre come from his group at the Department of Molecular Biology. However, Professor Knud Jørgen Jensen from University of Copenhagen (Denmark), Professor Herman Spaink from University of Leiden (The Netherlands) and Professor Clive Ronson from University of Otago (New Zealand) do also participate. Read more.... Laboratory of Plant Physiology and Molecular Biology, Turku, Finland If you ever go visit someone in outer space, remember to stop by at Turku and pick up some flowers or other photosynthetic organisms. One of the many aspects of plant biology they study is namely the suitability of higher plants and microalgae for use as biological life support systems under the harsh conditions on Mars or other distant destinations in space. Read more.... NARC, Norwegian Arabidopsis Research Centre Norway has committed itself to the new omics technologies. Ten national functional genomics platforms have been established through the Norwegian Research Council's Functional Genomics (FUGE) initiative. The platforms are responsible for developing state-of-the-art technologies within their fields and share this expertise with other scientists so they can perform the most advanced genomic research. Read more.... Göteborg University, Sweden Göteborg is the second largest town in Sweden, but its university is the largest in the whole of Scandinavia. With 51.000 students, 5.221 employees, 8 faculties and 70 departments it is uniquely wide-ranging and offers the most comprehensive selection of courses in Sweden. The university dates back to 1891 and experienced rapid expansion during the 1950s and 1960s - increasing the number of students from only 500 to 21.000 in two decades. Read more.... TRAP LABS (Transport Physiology Laboratories), Copenhagen Fundamental to all plants is the ability to take up nutrients from the soil and transport them along with other solutes to whatever part of the plant they are needed. At TRAP LABS, these basic physiological processes have been the focus for intense research since Michael Gjedde Palmgren joined KVL (The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University) as a Professor in 1998. Read more.... Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB), Oslo Founded in 1859 as Norges Landbrukshøgskole (NLH or Agricultural University of Norway), the Norwegian University of Life Sciences emerged in 2005 after a reorganization that gave it recognition as a real, research based university. Its historic roots attached in agriculture, the research at Universitetet for Miljø- og Biovetenskap (UMB) - as it is called in the local language - focuses on quality, technology and environmental friendliness of agri- and aquaculture. Read more.... Plant Signal Research, University of Helsinki If you want to know anything about Finnish research in plant molecular biology you should definitely talk to Professor Tapio Palva who is heading the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Plant Signal Research. Read more.... Lund University, Sweden When Denmark gave up Skåne, Halland and Blekinge - the southernmost provinces of modern Sweden - in 1658, the Swedish government decided to celebrate the reunion by establishing a university in the region, so as to minimize the Danish influence. Read more.... Plant Biotech Denmark, Copenhagen Plant Biotech Denmark (PBD) is not a typical research institute. In fact, it has only two employees and you will have a hard time finding just a single Petri dish or Eppedorf tube. Read more.... The NTNU Plant Genetics Group, Trondheim Well below the polar circle, where Norway narrows into a thin land strip, in the city of Trondheim, is the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU. Despite the city has only 150.000 inhabitants, the university has around 20.000 students and 3500 employees. Read more.... Plant Stress Group, University of Helsinki Ozone not only gives the forest a clean and fresh smell, it is also an air pollutant that mimics plant-pathogen interactions and induce cell death in plants. Read more.... Umeå Plant Science Centre By the end of the 1990's, two of the strongest experimental plant research departments in Sweden were the Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology at SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) in Umeå and the Department of Plant Physiology at Umeå University. Read more.... PlaCe - Center for Molecular Plant Physiology From its very beginning, PlaCe was intended to be a center of excellence and this has certainly come true. PlaCe - Center for Molecular Plant Physiology - provides research of the highest international standard and is highly competitive: more than 200 articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals since the launch six years ago. Read more.... Design and technical solution © 2005 Palmgren kommunikation.