Thirty Years of International Symposia on Plant Lipids

By Hartmut K. Lichtenthaler

Botany II (Molecular Biology and Biochemistry of Plants)
University of Karlsruhe
Kaiserstr.12, D-76128 Karlsruhe, Germany

Abstract: 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 other year. 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. On the occasion of the 16th International Symposium on Plant Lipids in Budapest in June 2004 a brief history of these symposia has been presented here. These symposia also were the start of a series of meetings on plant lipids in Germany, in the USA and in Japan. [Full Text]