INVITATION

Dear Colleague,

This is our great pleasure to invite you to take part in the 3rd Baltic Sea region symposium and postgraduate course organised by the Agro-Biotechnology Focused on Root-Microbe Systems (AB-RMS) Network “Applied and fundamental aspects of responses, signaling and developmental process in the root-microbe systems” to be held on June 25 – July 2, 2007 in St.-Petersburg, Russia.

Symposium and postgraduate course will address the key issues:

- Recognition and signaling in beneficial root-microbe interactions

- New structures and functions developed by plants in cooperation with microbes

- Diversity and evolution of root-microbe symbioses

- Nutritional and defensive impacts of symbiotic microbes on the legume and non-legume crops

- Resistance to pathogens induced by beneficial microbes

- Ecology and application of symbiotic microbes in sustainable agriculture

In the frames of the Symposium and postgraduate course the first part of the programme will include a scientific symposium with plenary sessions, oral research presentations and poster sessions. It will be followed by a scientific excursion, laboratory training, field studies, and 2 days especially designed for graduate students (literature reviews, group work tasks, presentation of own research projects, discussion of posters). Workshop of Consortium “Evolution of plant-microbe interactions” is planned during the Symposium and course.

The participants including PhD students, postdocs, research fellows and university teachers are invited to participate. Only active participants (poster or oral presentation) will be accepted. According to the format of meeting, the support from Organizing Committee may be provided to ca. 30 PhD students and ca. 30 senior scientists (all considered to be teachers) from Nordic and Baltic countries, northern Germany, Poland and north-western Russia on the result of selection of the proposed presentations. However, a number of additional applicants are welcomed to participate on their own cost which will not be too high.

We hope that you will appreciate our scientific program and also enjoy the social events which will include sightseeing of St.-Petersburg, one of the magnificent and unforgettable cities in “White Nights” season.

Looking forward to welcome you to St. Petersburg!

On behalf of The Organizing Committee,