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Scope and Agenda
The Canadian Society of Plant Physiologists Eastern Regional Meeting (CSPP-ERM) is run annually and its goal
is to provide a local inexpensive and smaller-sized venue for exchange of information between plant biologists
in Eastern Canada/US that focuses on their latest research findings in plant physiology and related areas of
plant biology. As done in some previous years, a Plant Development Workshop (PDW) will be fully integrated
into the CSPP-ERM in 2009, and meeting participants are welcomed to attend all presentations directed to either
the CSPP-ERM or PDW. Thus, the breadth of this meeting is always quite broad and oral and poster presentations
on ANY and ALL areas of Plant Biology are welcomed. This year we also have an organizational theme entitled
"From genomics to phenomics in the study of plant physiological processes", which we have used to select invited
speakers and for other organizational aspects of the meeting. Traditionally, this meeting has been geared to
researchers early in their career including undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows;
thus we strongly encourage participation by students and postdocs. There will be monetary awards for the best
student oral and poster presentations. The nature of the venue allows for much opportunity to interact with other
researchers both during the informal mixer the evening of Friday, December 4th and then the whole day on Saturday,
December 5th during the scientific program at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario.
The University of Guelph has a long history and it offers a relaxed and inviting setting for our meeting. We proudly
sustain one of the largest numbers of plant scientists of any institution in Canada and abroad. During the timetable
of our meeting (from 5:00 pm Friday, December 4th and all day Saturday, December 5th) you will enjoy free parking.
The City of Guelph is centrally located in Ontario about 80 km west of Toronto. Our city has experienced much growth
over the last decade (present population ~130,000) and it enjoys a vibrant downtown area that contains a range of
restaurants and pubs all about a twenty-minute walk from the University.
Conference registration and most of our meeting will be held in Rozanski Hall (see the map under "General Information"
found on Home Page), a newly built, state-of-the-art facility. On the evening of Friday, December 4, a Mixer is planned
at the Bullring Pub right beside Rozanski Hall. The Bullring was once a livestock show pavilion and is now run by the
Central Students Association (CSA) as a café and student gathering spot. A hot lunch will be provided at Peter Clark
Hall, which is also located on the University campus close to Rozanski Hall, on Saturday, December 5th, and there will
be refreshment breaks throughout the day on Saturday.
On Saturday, December 5, meeting participants have the opportunity to attend presentations by three invited guest speakers
who are leaders in their respective fields, including: (1) Dr. Aron Fazekas is a Research Associate at the University of
Guelph and he is an International lead in the field of DNA barcoding and sits on the Consortium for the Barcode of Life
(CBOL) plant working group committee representing Canada. Dr. Fazekas will discuss recent work on bar coding of earth's
plant species through the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario based at Guelph. His talk is entitled "DNA barcoding in land
plants: challenges, development, and applications"; (2) Dr. Rob McClung from Darmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire
was the President of the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) in 2007-2008 and he has contributed greatly to our
present understanding of the circadian clock in plants; the title of his presentation will be "Timing is everything:
Circadian clock function in Arabidopsis and Brassica"; and (3) Dr. Jim Giovannoni from the Boyce Thompson Institute in
New York who is a lead researcher for the International Tomato Sequencing Project and who has contributed much to our
understanding of the physiology of fruit ripening. Dr. Giovannoni will be speaking on "A genomics systems approach toward
identifying regulation of fruit development and ripening in tomato".
As the organizing committee at the University of Guelph, we are looking forward to a great meeting and to seeing you in
Guelph in December!
Barry J. Micallef
Bernard Grodzinski
Ian Tetlow
Larry Peterson
Overview of Meeting's Program
Friday, December 4
1) Registration at Rozanski Hall Concourse. From 7:00 to 8:30pm
2) Placing of posters at Rozanski Hall Concourse.
3) Use Registration Badge to enter The Bullring, and enjoy a drink on us!
4) Mixer and Music from 7:00 to 10:00 pm at The Bullring (open bar available).
5) Enter your free ticket to win a basket prize (announced at 9:00pm).
Saturday, December 5
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