The 2026 International Conference on Plant Stem Cell and Regeneration (PSCR 2026) was recently held in Weihai, Shandong province. Attendees comprised scientists and industry representatives from China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Finland, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and more.

The conference was co-hosted by Shandong University (SDU), Huazhong Agricultural University and the Plant Cell Biology Branch under the Chinese Society for Cell Biology.

Under the theme Plant Stem Cells: The Power of Regeneration, The Source of Health, the conference focused on fundamental research, emerging technologies and potential applications in plant stem cells and regeneration.

Advances in this underpin research areas include tissue culture, molecular crop breeding, plant chassis technology in synthetic biology and cellular agriculture.

Participants discussed five core topics: comparative studies of stem cells and regeneration in plants and animals; molecular mechanisms of plant stem cells and regeneration; plant stem cells in evolution and development; plant stem cells and synthetic biology; and plant regeneration and genetic transformation.

Xu Zhihong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and former president of Peking University, emphasized the importance of fundamental research in understanding plant regeneration. He noted that emerging technologies can accelerate scientific discovery but cannot replace basic research.

International speakers also shared research on meristem development, molecular mechanisms of vascular cambium development, auxin signaling, barriers towards plant regeneration, and transcriptional reprogramming during somatic embryogenesis.