Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I am pleased to invite you to the 1st International Conference of Duckweed Research and Applications (ICDRA-2011) that will be held on October 5th - 7th, 2011 in Chengdu, China with the theme “Resources, Environment and Bio-energy”.

The humble aquatic plant duckweed (Lemna spp.) has many appealing attributes that makes it an important candidate as a potential new model crop. It is easy to cultivate with a prolific division rate and its relatively compact genomes in many of the known species (as small as 150 MB) should facilitate its genomic analyses at high resolution. Duckweeds propagate vegetatively as well as sexually, and have the fastest known doubling time of flowering plants (approximately 30 hours). In addition, they are also amenable for transformation using either Agrobacterial or physical approaches. As shown by many research studies, duckweed plants can play an important role in water cleaning as they are frequently found growing in water bodies that are contaminated by municipal, agricultural, industrial, and mineralogical wastes with high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus. Duckweed plants can also be effective in removing heavy metals and other toxic elements from wastewaters. Some wild species of duckweed have been found to sequester or degrade a wide range of environmental contaminants – from heavy metals, such as lead and cadmium, to halogenated organic compounds. Forthermore, there is -a great potential utilizing the duckweed biomass for renewable fuel production. Therefore, it is time to convene the professionals who are interested in duckweed to exchange information and ideas on developing this aquatic model plant as a valuable resource for human being.

This conference we will cover the following five major topics about duckweed:

1.　　  Biodiversity, Ecology and Natural Variations;

2.　　  Genomics and Molecular Technologies;

3.　　  Bio-energy Conversion and Feedstock Production;

4.　　  Chemistry and Natural Products;

5.　　  Industrial Applications and Process Engineering Research.

On behalf of the organizing committee of ICDRA-2011, I would like to invite you to join us in this important conference. I would also like to thank all the scientific advisors, session organizers, supporters, and the organizing committee members for their effort and support to make this conference possible. The conference will take place in Chengdu, a modern and yet appealingly ancient city. A tour of Chengdu is included in the conference after the technical programs. It will be a great opportunity to experience the traditional Chinese culture and to taste genuine Sichuan food.

We look forward to meeting you in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China in this October.

Sincerely Yours,

Prof. Zhao Hai

Vice Director of Center for Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Chengdu Institute of Biology (CIB), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)