Staff member Rebecca Curland and PhD student Kristi Ledman, both of the Dill-Macky lab, represented UMN Plant Pathology at the 7th Xanthomonas Genomics Conference in Clearwater Beach, Florida this past June.
For Curland, attending this pathogen-specific conference was a valuable opportunity to connect to collaborators past, present, and future. “The virtue of having these smaller meetings is these more meaningful connections,” she said. In addition to putting faces to names of researchers she had read or corresponded with before, she was also able to spend time with Jonathan Jacobs’s lab (based at The Ohio State University), both collaborating on a paper and spending quality time.
Curland presented a poster titled “The First Annual North Central US Bacterial Leaf Streak Meeting: Cultivating communication and collaboration among Xanthomonas translucens researchers” about experiences and takeaways from the meeting she and Jacobs hosted for BLS researchers here on campus this past February. Beyond summarizing take-aways from the meeting, Curland’s poster shared information on the importance of the research and how to join next time.
Ledman also found value in attending a pathogen-specific conference, adding, “It was really cool to attend a conference that was focused on the bacterium I work with, and meet other students & scientists from around the world who share similar interests.”
Ledman presented a poster titled “Comparative genomics of Xanthomonas translucenspv. undulosa strains isolated from weedy grasses and cultivated wild rice.” Also written in collaboration with Curland and the Jacobs lab, this poster presented Ledman’s genome sequencing of X. translucens, which makes a valuable contribution to the existing knowledge base on diversity and host adaptation for this important pathogen.
Funding for this experience was provided by CFANS developmental travel funds and Department of Plant Pathology travel funds, as well as the Dill-Macky lab.