The International Conference on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR 2025), held from 16–20 June 2025 in Ghent, Belgium, ranks among the world’s most prestigious events in the field of plant biology. Slovakia was successfully represented by researchers from the Plant Biology and Biodiversity Centre of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAS) – Dr Jozef Mravec, Assoc. Prof. Ján Jásik, Dr Ajay Kumar, and Katarína Heldesová, MSc.
Early-career researchers Dr Ajay Kumar and Ing. Katarína Heldesová were both awarded travel grants by the Association of Applied Biologists (AAB), which are granted based on the quality of submitted scientific abstracts. This support enabled them to personally present their research findings and actively engage with the international scientific community.
Dr Ajay Kumar and Assoc. Prof. Ján Jásik presented their research on the role of synaptotagmins in plant cells, while Ing. Katarína Heldesová and Dr Jozef Mravec introduced the development of a new fluorescent probe for studying the plant cell wall.
In addition, Katarína Heldesová co-organised the thematic workshop “Resolving heterogeneity in plants with imaging and omics”, which formed part of the official conference programme and attracted significant attention. She described the workshop and her experience with its organisation in a blog post published on the Plantae portal:
👉 plantae.org/icar2025-workshop
More about the conference and Dr Ajay Kumar’s impressions can be found in the September issue of the AAB Newsletter:
👉 aab.org.uk/september-2025
