Minutes of the Fusarium Policy Group Meeting on March 28th, 2010, Amsterdam, 17h00

 

(39 people subscribed to the ECFG10 satellite meeting on Fusarium on March 28 – 29th in Amsterdam and the majority attended this Fusigroup meeting)

 

During the policy group meeting we voted on the options for the 2011 Asolimar conference. Corby Kistler volunteered to be the organizer of this meeting and Cees Waalwijk will be his counterpart on this.

Three options were put forward:

·     Before or after the main conference, e.g. Monday and/or Tuesday (March 14-15) vs. Sunday (March 20). Like the voting at the previous Asilomar meeting in 2009, the vast majority favored before (15 yea’s and 0 nay’s)

·     Regarding a lunch meeting or a full day, it was unanimously suggested to have a full day program (20 vs 0). After the meeting it was suggested that this full day does not necessarily has to occur on the Asilomar grounds. We could have this in a hotel, between San Francisco and Monterey, where most of us might spend the night (Monday 14th). Free venue room might be negotiated, with ample guests.

·     As a 3rd option it was suggested to check with the main program organizers whether we could run a (additional) concurrent session on Fusarium. This would compete with sessions form the main program, but we would have a 6 hours window from lunch till dinner. As this is still very preliminary this option was not put to a vote.

 

No volunteers stepped forward to replace the Frances Trail and Hans van Etten in the Executive Committee, partly due to confusion about responsibilities.

 

The Fusarium Comparative Genomics Platform (http://fcgp.fusariumdb.org) was discussed, but most members have not had a chance to use it yet.

 

New genome initiatives:

·         Erik Lysoe (Norway) announced WGS and EST sequencing of F. langsethiae, T2 toxin producer in oats and other small grain cereals.

·         Martijn Rep (Netherlands) announced that several additional F. oxysporum strains will be sequenced. (Suggestions are still welcome)

·         John Manners (Australia) announced the sequencing of F. pseudograminearum, pathogen of wheat in drier climatic zones, e.g. Australia.

·         John Manners (Australia) also announced a proposal to sequence (some) species under the umbrella of biosecurity.

·         Kim Hammond-Kosack (UK) announced the sequencing of F. culmorum by 454 technology.

·         Cees Waalwijk (Netherlands) introduced a genome and EST sequencing project on F. oxysporum f. sp cubense (pathogenic on banana). JGI-DOE will sequence ESTs from mycelium, spores and germinating spores of all four races, while BIG (Beijing Institute of Genomics) will do the WGS on tropical race 4.

 

It was stressed that all strains subject to sequencing programs should be deposited at several depositories (FGSC, CBS, MUCL, etc)

 

Meeting was adjourned at 17h45