The EuroXanth COST Action will hold its 3rd Annual Conference on “Integrating science on Xanthomonadaceae for integrated plant disease management in Europe” in Lednice, Czech Republic, from 9 to 11 September 2019. The conference will welcome 70 to 85 participants and will serve as a platform to exchange knowledge and to share technical knowhow with respect to members of the Xanthomonadaceae family. On-site registration will open on September 8 at 7 p.m. The conference will start on September 9 at 9.30 a.m. and finish on September 11 at noontime.
The call for abstracts is now open. If you wish to attend this conference, please complete the online application form and submit an abstract of your contribution (see HERE for instructions for abstracts). Candidate participants from companies should upload a short letter outlining their interest in the conference.
The deadline for applications is May 1, 2019. All applications will go through selection by the Scientific Committee; successful applicants will be informed one month after the deadline. Since the number of participants is limited, we emphasize that the online form is only an application for registration. Completing the form does NOT mean that you are accepted in the conference. Please do not make any travel bookings until you have received confirmation that your application to attend the conference has been approved.
Only applicants from partnering COST countries can apply for reimbursement of travel and subsistence costs by the EuroXanth COST Action. Among them, only participants who will give an oral presentation or who will present a poster will be eligible for reimbursement. If successful, travel and subsistence costs will be reimbursed in line with the COST Travel Reimbursement Rules and according to the limits defined by the Management Committee. We specifically ask Early Career Investigators (ECIs) and colleagues from Inclusiveness Target Countries to apply for participation and reimbursement.
The EuroXanth Core Group has discussed the opportunity to involve COST-supported participants in the drafting of Wikipedia-like profiles on certain virulence factors (e.g. type III effectors) and resistance genes. Once accepted for participation and reimbursement, applicants will need to pick a topic from a list and prepare a description of this gene family following a standardised format. The outcome of the work will be presented during the Annual Conference.
The conference will address topics of all four Working Groups:
Session 1: Diagnostics & Diversity – Population Structure
Session 2: Pathogen Biology
Session 3: Genetic Resistance – Host Defence
Session 4: Disease Management – Vector Control
ECI Session: Poster abstracts with ECIs as corresponding authors will be evaluated by a distinct ECI evaluation committee and selected authors will be invited to present their work in the form of a short oral communication.
The conference will be organized by ass. prof. Dr. Miroslav Baránek (Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic) and his colleagues Dr. Aleš Eichmeier, Dr. Jana Čechová, Filip Gazdík, Jakub Pečenka and Eliška Peňázová, all from the Mendeleum – Institute of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Lednice.
Scientific Committee of the conference:
| Name | Role | Country | Working group |
| KOEBNIK, Ralf | Chair | FR | WG2 |
| CATARA, Vittoria | Vice Chair | IT | WG3 |
| COSTA, Joana | WG1 Leader | PT | WG1 |
| POTHIER, Joël | WG2 Leader | CH | WG2 |
| BOCH, Jens | WG3 Leader | DE | WG3 |
| STEFANI, Emilio | WG4 Leader | IT | WG4 |
| KOVACS, Tamas | WG4 Vice Leader | HU | WG4 |
| BARÁNEK, Miroslav | MC Member | CZ | WG1 |
| BERAN, Pavel | MC Member | CZ | WG1 |
Keynote speakers:
| Name | Affiliation | Country |
| Rodrigo ALMEIDA | University of California, Berkeley, CA | USA |
| Helvécio Della COLETTA-FILHO | Centro de Citricultura Sylvio Moreira, Cordeiropolis, SP | Brazil |
| Leonardo DE LA FUENTE | Auburn University, Auburn, AL | USA |
| Jeffrey B. JONES | University of Florida, Gainesville, FL | USA |
With kind regards,
Ralf Koebnik, Chair of the COST Action
Miroslav Baránek, Chair of Local Organising Committee
Isabelle Sciacco, Grant Holder Administrator
Venue
The conference will be held at the Faculty of Horticulture in Lednice. Lednice is a village in South Moravia, approximately 50 km south of Brno and 80 km north of Vienna, Austria.
Lednice was inscribed in 1996 on the UNESCO World Heritage List (together with the twin manor of Valtice) as “an exceptional example of the designed landscape that evolved in the Enlightenment and afterwards under the care of a single family.” Lednice contains several palaces and the largest park in the country, which covers 200 km2. A visit to the Castle of Lednice will be organised.
How to get to Lednice
The conference will start in the morning of September 9th. You therefore need to arrive in Lednice the day before. The conference ends around lunchtime on September 11th.
To travel to Lednice, different surrounding airports can be used as Vienna Airport (80 km), Brno Airport (50 km; usually significantly more expensive tickets), Bratislava Airport (80 km) or the main airport in the Czech Republic – Prague Airport (260 km). For subsequent travel to Lednice it is recommended to use a train to Břeclav (local transport hub), from where you can either take a bus (every hour until 21:00, 1€) or a taxi (approx. 15€). For travel information in the Czech Republic, please visit the travel planner and/or Czech Tourism. Meaningful recommendations how to reach Lednice from individual airports are also suggested by GoogleMaps applications.