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Bari, Italy, 23-25 September 2024

XII International Symposium on the Plant Bunyaviricetes and their Vectors

Welcome to the XII International Symposium on plant Bunyaviricetes and their Vectors to be held in Bari, Italy from Sept 23 to Sept 25 at the University of Bari, Aldo Moro classroom, Piazza Cesare, Battisti, 1 - 70122 Bari (Google map link ). This web portal will be constantly updated with the specific information about the scientific program (details and PDF after July 15th 2024 deadline), the registration process, social events and travel and accommodation information.

Congress theme

In the past decades, researchers working on tomato spotted wilt virus, orthotospoviruses and their thrips vectors have shared their knowledge and research progress at the ISTT,... the International Symposium on Tospoviruses and Thrips, held once every 3-4 years. Mostly about ~120 participants joined this meeting coming from all over the world. Due to the expansion of plant viruses with a segmented negative strand RNA genome, at the ISTT in 2019 (Kunming, China) it was decided to expand (and accordingly rename) this symposium and share our platform to also embed researchers working on tenuiviruses, emaraviruses and coguviruses, all now presenting the plant-infecting members of the Bunyaviricetes. Having left Covid behind and travelling restrictions being abolished, we are now planning the follow up on the XIth ISTT, the XIIth International Symposium on the Plant Bunyaviricetes and their Vectors. We aim for a program of about 3 days during which we like to offer many people the possibility to share their work during oral (all plenary) and poster presentations, keeping the number of longer keynote presentations low, combined with a good time to socialize e.g. at poster sessions. For this symposium to continue serving as a platform towards researchers working only on Thysanoptera (thrips) as well, a session/satellite meeting will be organized on the first day (Sept 23) that entirely focusses on the biology, taxonomy and management of thrips (as a pest agent, and not as viral vector). This session will be programmed simultaneous to the first sessions on the fundamentals of virus transcription and replication, and disease pathology, but will depend on the number of contributions submitted for oral presentations by participants to the meeting. For the program on the plant bunyaviricetes and their vectors we intend to select presentations along the life cycle of these viruses, on expressing & multiplying, suppressing & conquering, building & escaping, damaging & spreading, fighting and managing, emerging & evolving, vector acquisition and spreading. By offering a mix of presentations covering the aforementioned viruses we want to stimulate the interaction and cross-pollination and try to build a new and larger plant Bunyaviricetes community. At one of the evenings a social event will be organized to strengthen this community, but for the other nights participants will be free to move around, socialize and enjoy dinner in smaller groups. During all this, the organization aims to keep costs reduced to allow many to participate. We selected three invited speakers to give a plenary lecture opening each day of the congress (more details soon).

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The host city

Bari is the capital of the Apulia region (Puglia in Italian), one of the richest archaeological regions in the southern part of Italy. A long history of different native populations... (the Apulians, that gave the region the name, were an autochthonous population originally residing in the region before the Roman empire) and subsequent influences from a number of invading populations (Greek colonies, Roman, Byzantine, Arabic, Norman, Aragonese, etc.) made this region a melting pot of people and cultural influences that can be seen in the many different layers of architectures and styles that are present in Bari itself and throughout the region. With its arabic-influenced historic downtown, called Città vecchia. Bari is geographically and vocationally oriented toward East, and in this relationship, the history of its patron Saint (also known world-wide as Santa Claus) and of the church dedicated to it can be found here San Nicola di Bari. The Apulia region has a thriving economy traditionally relying on agriculture, with a long history of Mediterranean crops, particularly for durum wheat and olive (for olive-oil production, the green gold). It is the home of the Mediterranean diet, and local food based on pasta, olive oil, vegetables and legumes can satisfy any dietary preference. The Gargano peninusula in the North, and the Salento region in the South are at the center of internationally renowned tourist meccas for their beaches and a well conserved Mediterranean landscape. Bari is also at one hour drive from two UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE locations: the city of Matera and the Alberobello town. Bari hosts the well renowned University of Bari, and of a number of institutes of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), particularly in the agriculture-food production theme. Bari is a relatively safe city for foreigners. Nevertheless, some neighborhoods located in the outskirts of the city are to be avoided (Libertà, Japigia, San Paolo, and Madonnelle), tourists should not face safety problems in the downtown area where the congress is held. Use common sense and apply all usual safety precautions.

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Contact Information

Contact us to info@plantbunya.eu

General Information and deadlines

For registering please go to HOW TO REGISTER tab and please consider the following deadlines:

Registration: July 15th 2024
Abstract submission: July 15th 2024

Call for abstracts

Deadline for abstract July 15th 2024

Download the template for abstract and submit after registration at registration@plantbunya.eu

Please maintain the same font and font size and choose a section for your abstract (upon submission from the following list). To assist in the programming of the meeting, please indicate your preference when submitting an abstract for either an oral or poster and the session topic of your presentation. For now, the following provisional sessions are programmed:

  • On the Biology, Taxonomy and Management of Thysanoptera-thrips
  • Virus multiplication and pathology
  • Virus-host-insect interactions
  • Virus transmission and vector epidemiology-ecology
  • Host plant resistance towards virus and insect vectors, and viral counter-defense
  • Disease management of virus and insect vector
  • Virus emergence, diversity, taxonomy and (development of future) diagnostics
  • Metagenome & virome studies
Download the template

How to register

Registration will be open After May 1st, 2024. For on-site participation, registration will cover coffee breaks and three lunch breaks; the abstract book will be in PDF.
The on-site registration will amount to 250 Euros for academics, 200 Euros for student (please provide evidence in the registration mail), and 350 Euros for non-academics.

1

Make payment

Make payment (
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2

Send an email

Please send an e-mail (to registration@plantbunya.eu) with proof of payment and also submit the Abstract attaching your word file to the mail (if you are a student, please provide any evidence of your choice). Deadline for registration and abstract submission is July 15th 2024.

Daily scientific programme

Download the program here!

Invited speakers

speakers

Prof. Liying Sun: Northwest A&F University, China

Title: Cross-kingdom Virus Infection: Revitalizing Virocontrol for Phytopathogenic Fungal Diseases

Dr. Liying Sun is a current professor at Northwest A&F University, China and a cross-appointed professor at Okayama University, Japan. Her research interests focus on studying virus-host interactions and virus-vector interactions. Recently she made an intriguing discovery of a novel negative strand RNA virus that naturally infects both plants and fungi. This finding highlights the virus’s ability to adapt and spread among diverse hosts, offering a fresh perspective on virus evolution and reshaping traditional views on plant and fungal viruses. Interestingly, this virus appears to decrease the pathogenicity of the fungal host while remaining asymptomatic in the plant host. This characteristic suggests the virus’s potential as a biocontrol agent against fungal diseases by introducing it to plants, introducing a novel approach to managing plant fungal infections.

speakers

Prof. Xiaorong Tao: Department of Plant Pathology, Nanjing Agricultural University (China)

Title: “Tsw- and Sw-5b- NLR-based resistance to Tospoviruses”

Xiaorong Tao, Professor and Chair of Department of Plant Pathology, Nanjing Agricultural University (NAU). He obtained his Ph.D. degree (1999-2004) at Zhejiang University in China and did postdoc research (2005-2010) at Ohio State University in USA. He then joined NAU to start his virology lab. Since then, he is devoted to the study of plant segmented negative-strand RNA (NSR) viruses including tomato spotted wilt virus and rice stripe virus. Through more than 10 year efforts, his group has firstly established the reverse genetics system for TSWV. In recent years, under the support of the projects from the Chinese National Science Foundation, he has carried out systematic researches on the pathogenic mechanism of plant NSR viruses and NLR-mediated host defence against viruses. The research was published in Nature, Nature Communications, PNAS, Plant Cell, Molecular Plant, PLoS Pathogens, Journal of Virology and other journals. He serves as Editorial Board member of Chinese Journal of Virology, Associate Editor of Pest Science Management, Secretary of Committee of Plant-Microbe Interactions in China.

speakers

Dr Pascal Miesen (Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands)

Title: "Decoding antiviral immune responses in insect vectors"

Pascal Miesen is assistant professor at the department of Medical Microbiology at Radboudumc Nijmegen, The Netherlands. He obtained his PhD degree on studying the role of small non-coding RNAs in insect-virus interaction, with a special focus on PIWI-interacting RNAs in Aedes mosquitoes. These insects are the principal vectors for important human-to-human-transmitted viruses including dengue and Zika viruses. His current research aims at unravelling mosquito host responses that control virus transmission, with a particular focus on the role of epigenetic and metabolic regulation. To study these aspects at the molecular level, his group employs a combination of (pharmaco-) genetics, microscopy-based approaches, and advanced high-throughput sequencing technologies. His work highlights the value of developing molecular tools for non-model organisms to comprehend host-pathogen interactions.

speakers

Dr. Francesco Di Serio: Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection (CNR) Italy

Title: Diversity of plant-associated Bunyaviricetes

Plant protection, mainly against viruses and viroids, is the main research topic addressed by F. Di Serio, currently Director of the Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection of the National Research Council of Italy. During his carrer, F. Di Serio has identified and characterized many novel viroid-like RNAs and plant viruses, including the first members of the genus Coguvirus, recently classified in the family Phenuiviridae. Using viroids -small circular RNAs that do not code for any protein but may infect plants and cause diseases- as a model system, F. Di Serio investigated structural/functional relationships in non-coding RNAs, focusing on the role of RNA silencing in both plant anti-viroid defense and viroid pathogenesis. More recently, he contributed to the discovery of a novel level of microbial biodiversity characterized by thousands of viroid-like RNAs endowed of ribozymatic activity, some of which coding for their own replicase. F. Di Serio is member of the Phenuiviridae Study Group and the Chair of the Study Group on Pospiviroidae and Avsunviroidae families of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV). Currently (till next June 2024) he is member and and vice-chair of the Plant Health Panel of the European Food Safety Authority.

Social events

Bari castle

Social dinner

A social dinner, which will include a walking tour of the historic downtown, will be held on Sept 24th at 8pm (from june 28th you can pay the dinner in the registration tab).

Partners

IPSP
SIV
Wageningen Univerity
Università degli studi di Bari
Journal of general Virology
University Fund Wageningen
Accademia dei Georgofili

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