FABIans attend ICPP in Torino, Italy, August 2008
The 9th International Congress of Plant Pathology (ICPP) was held in the scenic city of Torino, in Northern Italy during August 2008. Five staff members and four students supported through the CTHB and TPCP had the privilege of attending this meeting. ICPP, held every 5 years, is the single largest meeting of plant pathologists who gather and share new developments in plant pathology. This year more than 1500 delegates from more than 90 countries attended the meeting. FABIans not only attended, but also made a substantial contribution to the larger meeting with 2 invited lectures and short presentations and 18 poster presentations.
The title of this year’s meeting was “Healthy and safe food for everybody”. A wide variety of topics was covered, including global food security, climate change, recent developments in disease control and prevention, breeding for resistance, and diagnostics and taxonomy. Although the majority of research results presented dealt with food crops and fruit trees, forest pathology was well represented. Several of the most prominent forest pathologists in the world attended the meeting, and apart from the symposia with formal presentations, the forest pathologists also organized a meeting to strategize on improving the visibility of forest pathology at such international congresses in future. Prof Jolanda Roux from FABI was elected chairperson of the working group responsible for coordinating these efforts.
The value to those attending these meetings is hard to quantify, but there are several levels of advantages. The first is that it serves as an international platform to present our results to peers in the field. Secondly, you get exposed to new ideas and modern techniques, which force you to compare the quality of your research with what is happening in the rest of the world. Thirdly, the opportunity is there to meet and interact with world leaders in your field, and most often research collaborations with scientists from other countries is initiated through these interactions.
Our thanks to the CTHB and TPCP programmes for sponsoring attendance at ICPP.
The group of international forest pathologists attending ICPP
