Midwest Section Holds Annual Meeting

The annual meeting of the Midwest Section of the American Society of Plant Biologists took place on March 15 and 16 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. John Kiss, president of the section, organized and served as local host for this successful meeting, which attracted more than 90 participants and featured 36 oral presentations. As usual, this venue provided an excellent forum for student presenters, with 25 graduate students and three undergraduates giving research talks. Two graduate students, Darron Luesse (Indiana University, Roger Hangarter lab) and Surasak Siripornadulsil (The Ohio State University, Richard Sayre lab), were given awards for the best graduate student presentations. Kelly Roth (Miami University, John Kiss lab) received the award for the best undergraduate research presentation.

The keynote address was presented by Dr. Roger Hangarter (Indiana University) on "Light Regulated Chloroplast Movements in Arabidopsis." During the course of the talk, the audience was treated to a series of time-lapse movies showing the movements of chloroplasts in response to changing light intensity. Fluorescence microscopy revealed some of the cytoskeletal rearrangements that enable these movements to occur rapidly and reversibly. Finally, the audience was presented with some truly remarkable examples of the living art that can be created on leaf surfaces by using light to rearrange the chloroplasts. Movies showing other plant movements can be seen at the Hangarter lab web site (http://sunflower.bio.indiana.edu/~rhangart/plantsinmotion.html).

At the business meeting, members elected Allan Showalter (Ohio University) to become the vice president of the section. Steve Rodermel (Iowa State University) will advance to become president, and Karen Koster (University of South Dakota) will serve another year as secretary/treasurer. Iowa State University will be the site of the 2003 meeting of the Midwest Section, with dates to be announced.