A Biochemical Society Focused Meeting

Proceedings (invited speakers) will be published in Biochemical Society Transactions

Abstract submission deadline: 13 July 2009
Abstract submission is now closed.

Earlybird registration deadline: 13 August 2009
Registration is now closed.

Student travel grants are available for this meeting.
 

Grants are available from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. Only UK PhD students are eligible. To apply, please download the application form and send it back to the conference office.
Please note: this is an application form only and full reimbursement of the registration fees and travel costs can not be guaranteed.  If the application has been successful, the registration fees and travel costs will be partly or fully reimbursed in October 2009.

Oral communication slots are available at this meeting. All attendees, particularly researchers in the early stages of their career, are invited to submit a poster abstract for consideration as an oral communication.

Meeting background
In recent years there has been a significant acceleration in our understanding of the molecular processes behind a host of plant reproductive processes, particularly in the role of cell-cell signalling in both pre and post fertilisation events. The meeting will serve to bring together labs at the cutting edge in this field and will focus on cell-cell communication from arrival of a pollen grain at the stigma surface where a molecular dialogue is first established, through guidance signals that ensure the pollen tube successfully delivers sperm to the female gametes deep in maternal tissues, to understanding the complex nature of the relationship between the developing embryo and the nutritive endosperm following double fertilisation. The programme will also include contributions on molecular characterization of plant gametes, an area which has recently seen significant progress, the role of genomic imprinting in plant gametes and how this affects the balance of maternal and paternal contribution to the developing embryo, blocks to polyspermy and the diverse roles of small protein ligands in reproductive biology.