Proteomic analysis of abiotic stresses in grapevine

The 5th Annual GRCN Conference was held on the UC Davis campus in California, USA from the evening of July 9, 2013 until mid-day July 12, 2013. It had more than 50 participants spanning American, European and Asian countries some of which were Australia, United States of America, Belgium, Chile, Spain, Italy, France, Israel, China, Nepal and India. The goal of the GRCN2013 conference was to stimulate discussion towards developing collaborations and resources for grape functional genomics with a broad systems biology approach. The keynote opening talk was delivered by Jean-Mari Peltier, President, National Grape and Wine Initiative, Sacramento, CA, USA. The seven topics covered in the GRCN2013 conference included: Transcriptomics; Proteomics; Metabolomics; Systems Biology; Genome Sequencing; Genome annotation, prediction and functional annotations; and Grape Breeding. For each of the topics, three or four speakers presented a 30 minute research presentation on the work done in their research groups. The future aims of each topic were discussed to aid improvement within the grape research community. The talks were highly dynamic, enlightening and informative. Each research presentation concluded with a ten minute time slot for questions and open discussion. The poster session was held in the Silverado Vineyards Sensory Theatre, UC Davis on July 11, 2013. The conference ended with breakout sessions of group discussions to facilitate strategic planning for the future. A tour of several wineries in the Sonoma Valley was organized after the conference.