The International Society for Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions (IS-MPME) congress was held in Portland, Oregon from 17-21 July 2016. The congress had 950 attendees (of which 289 were students) representing 40 countries delivering 185 presentations and 722 posters. Professor Dave Berger , research leader of the Molecular Plant-Pathogen Interactions research group was invited to give a talk entitled “Integration of resistance QTL, expression QTL and co-expression modules reveals molecular responses of maize to the fungal pathogen Cercospora zeina ” and also presented two posters. Poster presentations were also given by Prof. Lucy Moleleki , Brigitte Langenhoven and Miekie Human . Other researchers representing South Africa at the congress were Prof. Ian Dubery, Prof. Eduard Venter and Nicolis Vittorio from UJ and Hester van Schalkwyk from UFS.