“Exploring Phytobiomes” Workshop – Plant and Animal Genome Conference 2026

January 11, 2026

Location

San Diego, CA, USA

Website

https://pag.confex.com/pag/33/meetingapp.cgi/Session/14115

Outline

The Phytobiome is all of the organisms in, on, and around plants, and encompasses the many biological and physical components that influence or are influenced by the plant or the plant environment, including the soil. It consists of other plants, animals (insects and nematodes), a wide diversity of microbes (viruses, bacteria, fungi, slime-molds and algae), the plant microbiome, and the environment. In this workshop, talks will cover various aspects of research into understanding phytobiomes. The workshop is supported by the International Alliance for Phytobiomes Research and the Penn State One Health Microbiome Center.

Organizers

Isabelle Caugant, Dusti Gallagher – International Alliance for Phytobiomes Research
Jan Leach – Colorado State University

Program

The workshop will take place in Room Palm 8 from 4:00 to 6:10pm

• 4:00pm – Introduction
• 4:05pm – System-Scale Mechanisms at the Plant-Microbe-Environment Interface in Poplar – Abstract
  Gabriela Madrid, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
• 4:30pm – La France Disease 2.0: Same Old Symptoms, New Viral Players in Agaricus Bisporus – Abstract
  Ricardo Alcalá Briseño, Penn State
• 4:55pm – Won’t You be My Neighbor? A Weed’s Role In Crop Improvement – Abstract
  Jacob Montgomery, University of Chicago
• 5:20pm – Next-Gen Nitrogen Biofertilizers through Genetic Engineering and Predictive Models – Abstract
  Dexter Li, Switch Bioworks
• 5:45pm – Unravelling the Global Microbiome of Crop Plants – Abstract
  Pankaj Trivedi, Texas Tech University