36th Annual PMB Retreat
The PMB Retreat is a weekend-long event held at the beginning of the academic year. The program highlights the research activities of new consortium members (academic and corporate scientists) and introduces these members to North Carolina's community of plant molecular biologists.
The program includes research lectures given by consortium members, a keynote address by an internationally renowned scientist, and informal "chalk talks" presented by faculty, postdoctoral research associates, graduate students and corporate scientists.
This year's retreat includes invited speakers from many North Carolina universities and companies.
All participants are encouraged to present a Chalk Talk (an informal presentation) on their current research or ideas for future research. In keeping with the spirit of chalk talks, no formal posters will be allowed, but speakers may use a minimal number of prepared figures in their chalk talks if they consider them essential. Chalk talks are great vehicles for communication.
Keynote Speaker: Luis Herrera-Estrella, Texas Tech University
Capstone Speaker: Qingli Liu, Syngenta
Directions/Parking
Parking will be available at the hotel. Directions to the hotel.
Registration
Attendees must register through the registration link and are responsible for booking their hotel rooms.
More Information
**Chalk Talk Titles & Abstracts must be submitted in PDF format to [email protected] no later than 5:00 pm on Friday, September 11, 2026.**
Schedule of Events
Schedule of Events
Friday, October 9, 2026
6:45 p.m. | Registration Opens
7:00 – 10:00 p.m. | Welcome Reception and Chalk Talks
Cash bar opens at 7 p.m.; Heavy hors d’oeuvres served at 7:45 p.m.
7:00 – 8:30 p.m. | Chalk Talk Session 1
Nina Bravo-Chan
Anne Dibattista
John Grubbs
Wen-Yu Liu
Yumenko Nomura
Nathan Pfeffer
Chinmay Saha
Tao Zhong
8:30 – 10:00 p.m. | Chalk Talk Session 2
Naveen Chana
James Duduit
Narender Kumar
Manuel Maeso
Sienna Ogawa
Ethan Pierce
Andrea Ward
Saturday, October 10, 2026
7:30 – 8:30 a.m. | Breakfast at the Holiday Inn Resort
Morning Sessions
8:30 a.m. | Retreat Welcome and Announcements
8:40 – 9:40 a.m. | Keynote Speaker - Luis Herrera-Estrella, Texas Tech University and Unidad de Genómica Avanzada del Centro de Estudios Avanzados del IPN
Rewiring Roots for Resilience: Synthetic CRISPRa Circuits for Spatiotemporal Control of Phosphate Deficiency Adaptation
9:40 – 10:50 a.m. | Speaker Session 1
Session Chair TBD
9:40 a.m. | Arko Bakshi (Wake Forest University) Vacuolar Calcium Signaling via CAX2 Modulates Cell Wall Remodeling Under Flooding and Spaceflight-Induced Stress |
| 10:00 a.m. | Blake Rasor (NCSU) Cell-free photosynthesis to study the past, present, and future |
10:20 a.m. | Tanner Robinson (Duke) Hornworts provide new perspectives on a photosynthesis-enhancing organelle |
10:35 a.m. | George Sabbagh (Bayer) The Future of Agriculture, and Regulatory Pathways for Bringing New Technologies to Growers |
10:50 – 11:20 a.m. | Coffee Break
11:20 a.m. – 12:25 p.m. | Speaker Session 2
Session Chair TBD
| 11:20 a.m. | Eli Hornstein (Elysia Creative Biology/NCSU) Plants with jobs: metabolic engineering to make crops solve unconventional problems in sustainable agriculture |
| 11:40 a.m. | Steven McKenzie (UNC) High-throughput imaging of nuclear glutathione compartmentalization in Arabidopsis thaliana protoplasts |
| 11:55 a.m. | Mohammad Salehin (NC A&T) Decoding Auxin-Mediated Guard Cell Signaling Mechanisms for Drought Tolerance in Plants |
| 12:10 p.m. | Aziz Eida (UNC) Colonization fitness governs bacterial invasion and drought rescue in a synthetic root microbiome |
12:25 – 6:00 p.m | Lunch to Go
Evening Sessions
6:00 – 7:30 p.m. | Dinner
7:30 – 8:35 p.m. | Speaker Session 3
Session Chair TBD
| 7:30 p.m. | Krishna Reddy Challa (UNC) A dual role of CLAVATA3 peptide signaling in vascular organization and stem cell maintenance in Arabidopsis shoots |
| 7:45 p.m. | Brandon Boone (Western Carolina) Protein accumulation and gene regulation: conservation of MBD-ACD mechanism across plant species |
| 8:05 p.m. | Mahmud Huque (NCSU) Engineering Inducible Target Protein Degradation Systems in Plants |
| 8:20 p.m. | Wenxin Yuan (Duke) Tissue-Specific Complementation Reveals Essential Epidermal Functions of FERONIA |
8:35 p.m. | Adjourn for the day
Sunday, October 11, 2026
7:30 – 8:30 a.m. | Breakfast at the Holiday Inn Resort
Morning Sessions
8:30 – 9:50 a.m. | Speaker Session 4
Session Chair TBD
| 8:30 a.m. | Katie Vollen (NCSU) Expanding the Plant Base-Editing Toolbox with DarT-Mediated Append Editing |
| 8:45 a.m. | Emily Tallerday (UNC) The roles of the type-A Response Regulators in rice development and yield |
| 9:00 a.m. | James Duduit (NCSU) Identification and characterization of constitutive Fraser fir (Abies fraseri) promoter and terminator elements to facilitate in planta functional genomic analyses |
| 9:15 a.m. | Yixuan Chen (Duke) Salicylic Acid Engages Central Metabolic Regulators SnRK1 and TOR to Govern Immunity by Differential Phosphorylation of NPR1 |
| 9:30 a.m. | George Tiley (NCSU) Advancing genome research in challenging polyploid complexes |
9:50 – 10:20 a.m. | Coffee Break
Reminder: Hotel check-out time is 11:00 a.m.
10:30 – 11:35 a.m. | Speaker Session 5
Session Chair TBD
| 10:20 a.m. | Stef Elorriaga (NCSU) Genetic and metabolomic analysis of pollen cone color polymorphism in Abies fraseri |
| 10:35 a.m. | Sachi Rustin (Clemson) Breeding Wheat and Peanut for Reduced Immunogenicity Using Conventional and Innovative Approaches |
| 10:50 a.m. | Shova Mishra (NCSU) Decoding conserved and host-specific plant responses to root knot nematode infection |
| 11:10 a.m. | Owen Fenton (UNC) Title TBD |
11:25 a.m. – 12:25 p.m. | Capstone Speaker: Qingli Liu, Syngenta
Develop resilient crops for stable yield
12:25 p.m. | Adjourn / Retreat Ends
For questions or more information, contact:
Hannah Cole
Program Manager, Science and Technology Development
Science and Technology Development
919-549-8840
|
[email protected]
Holiday Inn Resort
Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina
Reservation Information
$239 + tax per night
Use the PMB Retreat Booking Link or call 910-256-2231 and mention "PMB Retreat 2026" to reserve your room.
*The retreat rate will be available until September 14, 2026 (or until available rooms are sold out)