Abstract Book

Invitation

The first International Symposium on Cryopreservation in Horticultural Species will be held in Leuven, Belgium from 5 to 8 April, 2009. This event will be co-organized together with the COST Action 871, CRYOPLANET (see http://www.biw.kuleuven.be/dtp/tro/cost871/home.htm) of the European Science Foundation.

Programme

For many horticultural species such as seedless plant species, species that produce recalcitrant seed as well as plant species that are propagated vegetatively to preserve the unique genomic constitution of cultivars (such as fruit and several timber and ornamental trees), cryopreservation is the only valuable solution for the safe long term storage. Moreover, besides its use for the conservation of genetic resources, cryopreservation proved to be extremely useful for the storage of plant tissues with specific characteristics, such as medicinal- and alkaloid-producing cell lines, hairy root cultures, genetically transformed and transformation-competent culture lines.

The program will include oral and posters sessions on topics dealing with fundamental aspects of cryobiology as well as with the application of cryopreservation in germplasm collections.

Location

Leuven is centrally situated in Belgium and very close to historical cities like Brussels (30km), Antwerp (70 km), Ghent (100 km) and Bruges (130 km). Brussels Airport is only at 25 km. Leuven, a real “student city” also hosts the Catholic University of Leuven (founded in 1425) which is one of the oldest Universities in the “Low Countries”.

Deadlines

Important deadlines:
Submission of abstracts	December 15th, 2008
Early registration fee	January 9th, 2009
Submission of full paper	April 6th, 2009
Deadline payments	February 20th, 2009

For more information contact ISHSPlantCryo@biw.kuleuven.be

Topics

The topics and keynote speakers will be selected by the scientific committee. Call for Abstracts are invited for oral and poster presentations on the following topics:

1. Fundamental aspects of cryopreservation and cryoprotection

The elucidation of the physico-biochemical background of cryoprotection is important to develop efficient cryopreservation protocols. The induction of freeze (and/or cryopreservation) tolerance mechanisms can among others depend on membrane stabilization (through changes in lipid composition, production of membrane protecting polypeptides), the water status in the plant cell, the change of the proteins and cytoskeletal proteins, the accumulation of sugars, polyamines and the induction of anti-oxidative mechanisms.

2. Genetic stability and traceability

Until now, successful cryopreservation is mainly judged by survival of the tissue and ability to regenerate into complete plants. It is, however, desirable to assess the genetic integrity of plants to determine if they are ‘true to type’ after cryopreservation.

3. Technological aspects of cryopreservation

These topics deal with the applications and optimisation of various cryopreservation protocols (encapsulation/dehydration, vitrification, slow freezing, ……) to different plant species and tissues.

4. Impact and applications of cryopreservation

Here the link is made between the more technical aspects of cryopreservation (see previous parts) and plant genetic resources and genebanks, establishment of cryo-banks and dissemination of results. Examples are :

National/International actions and status of Cryo-storage
Intellectual property rights of gene banks/cell cultures