Written by Tanya Berardini, Chief Science Officer at Phoenix Bioinformatics and Director of The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR)

Plant Biology 2026, the joint meeting of the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) and the Canadian Society of Plant Biologists, ran July 18-22 in Ottawa. Two of Phoenix Bioinformatics’ staff members, Marcela Tello-Ruiz, AgBioData’s program manager, and Tanya Berardini were on the ground all week. We kept the community updated throughout from our Bluesky accounts, @tairnews.bsky.social and @agbiodata.bsky.social. Looking back on a busy few days, some of the stand-out moments for our team included the FAIR data in agriculture workshop, the three-minute thesis competition, and the opportunity to connect with global colleagues.

FAIR data in agriculture workshop

Marcela and Sunita Kumari from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory facilitated the AgBioData workshop, “Plant Bioinformatics Resources for FAIR Agricultural Data Discovery and Reuse.” Marcela opened with a look back at AgBioData’s history and its contributions to data sharing and FAIR standards, then looked ahead to where that work is headed. Tanya gave the TAIR update, covering the past year’s work on the TAIR12 reannotation and the chatbot currently in development. The rest of the lineup shared resource updates from across the consortium: Asher Pasha covered the latest from the BAR, including GAIA and new eFP browsers for barley and Arabidopsis guard cells. Doreen Ware walked through SorghumBase, with a focus on interoperability and its pangenome views. Pankaj Jaiswal presented on Plant Reactome and Planteome, with a running theme of shared resources built together. Olivia Haley closed things out with news from MaizeGDB on metadata, identifiers, and open source data and protocols. 

“Plant Bioinformatics Resources for FAIR Agricultural Data Discovery and Reuse” speakers: Marcela Karey Tello-Ruiz, Asher Pasha, Doreen Ware, Pankaj Jaiswal, Tanya Berardini, Olivia Haley, and Sunita Kumari

Research takes center stage

The meeting brought back the three-minute thesis competition, a fantastic part of the program in which graduate students present their thesis using one slide, no props. The science, clarity, and enthusiasm of the four finalists were inspiring. The competition is organized by ASPB’s Early Career Plant Scientists (ECPS) Section. We’d love to see it as a permanent fixture of the annual program. Other talks brought some memorable moments too. Sue Rhee, TAIR’s first director who is now Director of the Plant Resilience Institute at Michigan State University, spoke about her lab’s work on Arabidopsis RHM1, part of a newly described metabolic biocondensate involved in rhamnose synthesis. Catherine Feuillet of INARI gave a talk on engineering new plants at scale, framing AI as an additional scientist working alongside a team rather than a replacement for one.

Fun and connection with colleagues

We staffed the AgBioData Consortium table with long-time and new colleagues and had many interesting conversations with our fellow meeting attendees, sweetened by the pens, stickers, and pins that the individual resources brought as swag. The AgBioData booth was a social hub throughout the meeting, with plenty of laughs shared at the table.

Thanks to both societies for a great meeting, including the closing reception which featured delicious food (the scallops were amazing), drinks including mocktails (Pollinator Punch!), music and dancing, awards, and a giant cake to celebrate Plant Physiology’s 100th birthday! Ottawa had a lot to offer, from beautiful sunny days to pouring rain, historical buildings, museums, the Mint, and the attached shopping mall with a food court that fed us when we needed it most.