G2P-SOL partners contribute to a vibrant Solanaceae annual Conference
 
The 15th Solanaceae Conference was held from 30 September to 4 October 2018 in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
 
The conference program (www.solanaceae2018.com/program) included diverse sessions on hot topics for the whole Solanaceae community and the G2P-SOL consortium, spanning from genomics and genome editing to breeding technologies and biodiversity. In addition, parallel workshops have been organised to address specific topics per crop.
 
Several members of the G2P-SOL consortium attended this large event that brings together the whole Solanaceous community every year.
 
Giovanni Giuliano (ENEA), G2P-SOL coordinator, gave a presentation on “The G2P-SOL project: harnessing the genetic and phenotypic diversity of the four major Solanaceae crops”. Additional presentations by G2P-SOL partners were by Ilan Paran: “Functional conservation of transcription factors controlling immature fruit color in pepper and tomato“, Lorenzo Barchi (UniTO): “Transcriptome analysis of eggplant in response to Frankliniella occidentalis attacks”, Paola Ferrante (ENEA): “Single Primer Enrichment genotyping highlights the worldwide population structure of tomato and eggplant germplasm”, Pietro Gramazio (UPV): “Use of eggplant wild genepools biodiversity for introgression breeding”, Arnaud Bovy (WUR): “Genetic analysis of fruit quality traits in pepper”, Mark Taylor (JHI): “Identification of potato genes that impact on tuber yield under different environments”, Sanjeev Kumar Sharma (JHI): “Sequence-based Genotyping and Trait Analysis in Potato”; Giuseppe Leonardo Rotino: (CREA-GB) “Understanding eggplant genetic variation for Nitrogen Use Efficiency”. Additonally, Sergio Lanteri (UniTO) and Pietro Gramazio (UPV) co-organized the workshop on Eggplants and other Solanaceae and Ilan Paran co-organized the Pepper symposium.

The conference was regarded by all participants as a great organizational success, with vibrant Solanaceae science, thanks to the relentless efforts of the organizing committee, headed by Darush Struss.

The next Solanaceae conference (www.sol2019.org) will be held on September 15-19, 2019 in Jerusalem, Israel. It will be co-organized, among others, by G2P-SOL partners Dani Zamir (HUJI) and Ilan Paran (ARO).
Prof. Giovanni Giuliano (ENEA), Paola Ferrante (ENEA) and Pietro Gramazio (UPV) at the Solanaceae Conference. These pictures are kindly provided by the 15th Solanaceae Conference Communication Team.
 
The G2P-SOL project (Title: Linking genetic resources, genomes and phenotypes of Solanaceous crops) has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 677379.