International Symposium of Plant Lipid

After several years of contacts between individual European plant lipid biochemists, the International Symposia on Plant Lipids (ISPL) were started in 1974 by an initiating Plant Acyl Lipid Symposium in Norwich, organized by Terry Galliard. In 1976 the topics were extended at the Karlsruhe Symposium (2nd ISPL) by including all the other plant lipids, such as isoprenoid lipids (sterols, carotenoids and prenyl side chains of chlorophylls and prenylquinones) and lipid polymers. Since then the International Symposia on Plant Lipids (ISPL) have been held every two years. Their goal is to promote scientific cooperation between work groups of different countries, and they have resulted in fast progress in all fields of plant lipid biochemistry. Precedent location of the ISPL are Sevilla (Spain) in 2012, Guelph (Canada) in 2014, Göttingen (Germany) in 2016 and Yokohama (Japan) in 2018. In 2020, the 24th ISPL will be held in Grenoble. This symposium gathers around 300 scientists and students from all over the world and is the major event in plant and algae lipid science. It will award two prices: the Terry Galliard medal for the career achievements of a distinguished plant lipid scientist and the Paul Stumpf award for a promising early-career plant lipid researcher. One of the major outcomes of this symposium is to stimulate discussions and collaborations between researchers toward understanding of the fundamental processes of lipid functions and biogenesis and its application to agricultural and industrial usages of plant and algal lipids in future.