Dr Bridget Crampton (Cereal Foliar Pathogen Research Group) and PhD student, Velushka Swart (Molecular Plant-Pathogen Interactions Group) of FABI attended the 36^th New Phytologist Symposium in Münich, Germany from 29 November to 1 December. Both were invited to showcase their research as poster presentations.

Poster titles:

J. LIVERSAGE, D.K. BERGER, B.G. CRAMPTON. "Functional characterisation of the Cercospora zeina crp1 gene as a putative pathogenesis regulation factor."

V. SWART, B. G. CRAMPTON, B. H. BLUHM, D. K. BERGER. "Cercospora zeina CTB gene expression profiles suggest an early role for cercosporin in grey leaf spot disease development in maize."

In celebration of the symposium, a virtual special issue of New Phytologist: Cell biology at the plant-microbe interface was released. The collection highlights the cutting-edge research presented at the symposium regarding different aspects of cell biology and plant–microbe interactions such as recognition at the cell surface, endomembrane and vesicle trafficking, nucleocytoplamic shuttling, transmembrane transport and imaging.

Two upcoming symposia to be hosted by New Phytologist include:

37^th New Phytologist Symposium: Plant developmental evolution. Beijing, China (15-19 May 2016)

38^th New Phytologist Symposium: Colonization of the terrestrial environment. Bristol, UK (25-27 July 2016)