SEXSEED

Congratulations to our fellow Jessy Silva! Jessy was awarded a very competitive grant to do her PhD in Sílvia Coimbra's Lab working on the functions of AGPs and its sugars. This doctoral fellowship is part of the programme INPhINIT ”la Caixa”, supported by Fundación "la Caixa". These grants support the best scientific talents and foster innovative and high-quality research in Spain and Portugal by recruiting outstanding international students and offering them an attractive and competitive environment for conducting research of excellence. Jessy Silva benefited from a secondment period in the frame of the SexSeed project, incresing her CV competences and skills! Well deserved Jessy! We wish you all the best in this new journey!

Even when our time for bench is limited due to Covid19 restrictions, the sexSeed team doesn't stop working on its most interesting topics. The book "Pollen and Pollen Tube Biology" is finally out! Mario Luis Costa, Jessy Silva and Sílvia Coimbra contributed with the Chapter on "Arabidopsis thaliana Pollen Tube Culture for Multi-omics Studies". Great work fellows!

The Coordinators of SexSeed team have organized a symposium with the latest updates on the field of Plant Reproduction. This meeting was open to all the scientific community. This included not only a series of interesting talks and poster sessions but also some leisure time such as a guided tour to the Waite Arboretu. To finalize, the SexSeed team got together to discuss the project, while it approaches its end. But collaborations will endure over time, that's for sure! Maybe they're planning the next RISE project? Who knows? More details on the symposium here..

What is the best way to start 2020? Publishing! Another work from our team! This is about the advantages and disadvantages of using CRISPR/Cas9 and RNA interference for AGPs analysis: "The best CRISPR/Cas9 versus RNA interference approaches for Arabinogalactan proteins’ study". But it can also be applied to other molecules. It happens that AGPs are, indeed, our favorites around here. Thank you for the great work Diana Moreira and fellows! You can access the article here.

The master's degree in Functional Biology and Plant Biotechnology from the Faculty of Science, University of Porto, constitutes an advanced training that contributes to the development of scientific research skills in the area of Plant Biology, but also of tools to apply the knowledge developed in a sector with great economic potential, such as plant biotechnology. Its students organized this 3rd edition of the Meeting in Functional Biology and Plant Biotechnology, where the students of the Master's degree present the works developed in the dissertation year, and was open to anyone interested in attending or presenting their work in the field of Plant Biology, whether by oral or poster presentation. Our fellows participated presenting the works developed in the frame of the SexSeed project, integrated in their Mastre studies.

Our fellow Mário Costa, continues to explore the fantastic world of Arabinogalactan Proteins (AGPs) in flowering plants. He has just published a research article with other SexSeed members on "In silico and expression analyses of fasciclin-like arabinogalactan proteins reveal functional conservation during embryo and seed development". Here Costa shows that the fasciclin-like arabinogalactan proteins (FLAs) organization into four groups is conserved and may be related to specific roles in developmental processes across angiosperms. If you are curious just have a look at the paper here.

The XV Cell Wall Meeting took place in Cambridge, United Kingdom. The meeting started with a welcome reception on Sunday 7 July, and finished on Friday 12 July. The SexSeed team was well represented in this meeting, and had the opportunity to present their works developed in the frame of the project either in the form of poster presentations or in the form of oral presentations. Once more, this was a fantastic oppotunity to get to know better scientists and their works on the plant cell walls, not only in reproduction but in many other processes, enriching our knowledge and networks.

And now, just something to show you how passionate about their work our fellows are, and that, as Dr. Tucker said "beauty is almost always hiding on the inside". These images are from barley flowers and this great snaps were taken by one of our fellows in Australia, Laura Wilkinson, working on Dr Tucker's Lab.

March has been quite rich in scientific outputs around here. Another great work from our team about plant reproduction. Ana Lopes, one of our fellows, along with other SexSeed member, has put together an excellent review on the plant reproduction topic. This is an interesting review about the mysteries of pollen tube growth along the pistil tissues and all the molecular players involved in this process.

Do you know that more than 40% of #MSCA fellows are women? MSCA is proud to support researchers in the name of Marie Skłodowska-Curie, whose work keeps on inspiring women and girls to embark on a scientific career and never give up on their dreams. And so do we! Most of the members of the SexSeed team are women and we are proud of it!

The SexSeed team wishes you a Merry Christmas and a Great New Year! May it be full of science and fun!

Advances in plant reproduction - From Gametes to Seeds is a two days meeting organized by Sexseed team members, and will be held in Florence on June 30 - July 1, 2018, just before the SEB Meeting. This meeting is the result of the demanding investment efforts made in the last years, by the plant reproduction scientific community, in understanding the basis of reproductive traits and its relationship with the plant phenotypic plasticity. More details here. The meeting will aim to gather enthusiastic experienced researchers, PhD students, early career researchers and academics within the fields of plant reproduction and development, but is also intended for plant reproduction publishers, companies and stakeholders that will be able to disseminate this new shared knowledge worldwide.

Our coordinator is now in Japan, at Nagoya University ITbM, in Dr. Higashyiama Lab! Sílvia Coimbra presented a seminar on the topic of her research group "AGPs cross-talk in pollen-pistil interactions". Thank you all for the very warm welcome!

On 7 - 9 February, our fellows Diana Moreira, Jessy Silva, Ricardo Lopes and Ricardo Ferraz, presented their work to the academic community at Universidade do Porto, during the Young Investigators Meeting. More info here. Great work!

Our Coordinator, Sílvia Coimbra, sharing her fantastic work as a Consolidated Researcher in the Career Development Workshop, integrated in Ciência à Moda do Norte event.

Participation in the IV Plant Genomics and Gene Editing Congress, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Participation in the XIX National Congress of Biochemistry 2016 in Guimarães, Portugal.