International Symposium on Induced Mutations in Plants (ISIMP), Vienna, Austria, 12 - 15 August 2008

On the 80th anniversary of mutation induction in crop plants, the International Symposium on Induced Mutations in Plants (ISIMP), organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) through the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, was held in the Vienna International Centre, 12-15 August 2008.

The symposium was opened by the Deputy Director General of the IAEA, Mr. W. Burkart, and with welcome remarks by Dr. S. Pandey, on behalf of the Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization. Dr. R. Philillips (United States of America) delivered the keynote speech "Expanding the boundaries of gene variation for crop improvement", and Mr. P.J.L. Lagoda provided the audience with information about the role of the FAO/IAEA Joint Programme. The symposium was then continued in two plenary sessions, 10 concurrent sessions and one workshop, with 122 oral and about 252 poster presentations. Approximately 500 representatives from 82 Member States of the IAEA and FAO, and nine international organizations/institutions attended the symposium, with a good balance between the private and public sector, and developing and developed Member States.

The symposium was closed with a scientific summary by Dr. T. Ishige (Japan) and remarks by Ms. A.M. Cetto, Deputy Director General, Department of Technical Cooperation, IAEA. Ms. Cetto stressed the importance of agriculture by quoting the remarks made by Pandit Jawarlal Nehru, the great former Prime Minister of India that "Everything else can wait but not agriculture". She said that this remark remains relevant today and there is no short term magic formula to solve the world's food problems. We must take advantage of all possible modes of intervention and action. Nuclear technology will continue to play an essential role in strengthening conventional breeding through induced mutations and efficiency enhancing bio-molecular technologies.

Main Topics

Topics addressed at the symposium:

Molecular genetics and biology of physical, chemical and transposon-induced mutagenesis
New mutation techniques, i.e. ion beam implantation, and their integration with other molecular and biotechnological techniques
Induced mutations in crop breeding programmes
Mutation induction for gene discovery and functional genomics, including targeting induced local lesions in genomes (TILLING) and other reverse genetic strategies
Mutational analysis of important crop characters (tolerance to abiotic stresses, resistance to diseases and insects, quality and nutritional characters, etc.)
Socio-economic impact of widespread mutant varieties.