From October 2 to 4, 2023, the 11th Plant Peptides and Receptor Meeting has been organized by the RDP. Later that month, from October 20 to 23, IGFL and LBMC organized the 27th European Drosophila Research Conference. Two events which - each on its own scale - are of great importance to the scientific communities concerned. They also reflect the quality and excellence of the research carried out at ENS de Lyon.

Plant Peptides and Receptors Meeting (PPR Meeting)

Initiated in 2013, the annual PPR Meeting focuses on plant peptides, their membrane-bound and cytoplasmic receptors, their modifying enzymes and downstream signaling events in plant development and adaptation. It was therefore only logical that the Plant Reproduction and Development (RDP, CNRS/ENS de Lyon/Lyon 1 University/Inrae) laboratory should organize an edition of this meeting for specialists in the field.

From October 2 to 4, 2023, the RDP hosted the 11th PPR Meeting, organized for the first time by a French laboratory. And it turned out to be the biggest edition since its creation, with 150 participants of 17 different nationalities.

Attendees gathered in the conference room of the Buissons building, and during breaks enjoyed a stroll through the Descartes campus garden. A pleasant setting for this congress, which made a priority of featuring young researchers. The program featured a large number of presentations, selected on the basis of abstracts, with one of the selection criteria being to give priority to doctoral students or young PhDs.

These young scientists accounted for between 1/3 and half of all conference attendees. For them, as for all researchers, these meetings are one of the best opportunities to forge new relationships in this highly collaborative community.

European Drosophila Research Conference (EDRC)

A major event for "drosophilists" - the research community working on the fruit fly, or Drosophila, as a study model - the EDRC has been held every two years since 1969. This year, the 27th EDRC was organized by the Institute of Functional Genomics of Lyon (IGFL, CNRS/ENS de Lyon/Lyon 1 University/Inrae) and the Laboratory of Biology and Modelling of the Cell (LBMC, CNRS/ENS de Lyon/Lyon 1 University/Inserm), with the support of ENS de Lyon.

The congress was held from October 20 to 23, 2023, relocated to the Lyon Convention Center, to accommodate the 880 attendees from all over Europe and the rest of the world. A substantial number of participants, of whom around 1/3 were young researchers.

The conference program includes 12 high-quality plenary lectures, 6 workshops on the first day, and numerous parallel sessions on each half-day. And let's not forget the eagerly awaited scientific poster presentations, featuring doctoral students and young PhDs, some of whom have come to learn their trade at this key event for the scientific community in which they have chosen to evolve.

To round things off in style, attendees were invited to a gala dinner at a restaurant on the banks of the Saône in the Confluence eco-district, where they enjoyed reaching by a cruise on the river.