The American Society sponsors the 4th Conference on Cell-Cell Communication in Bacteria held at the Hyatt Hotel in Miami FL, Nov. 6-9, 2011. The objectives of the meeting are to: 1. encourage and support the developments of new research directions; 2. foster multi-disciplinary interactions, and create research training opportunities for the next generation scientists; 3. expose the community to cutting edge technical advances including high-throughput methods in bacterial genetics and phenotyping, cryo-EM tomography, microfluidics, and single cell microscopy. 4. foster collegial interactions and discussions between scientist from different fields and at different stages of their scientific careers. Broader Impacts. The organizers have made an effort to be inclusive and pay attention to diversity and broadening participation. The funds requested will help support the travel of student and early career attendees. The ASM conferences have a tradition in disseminating conference highlights in a review published in the journal of Bacteriology.
This report describes the results of the support provided by the National Science Foundation for the 4th Cell-cell Communication in Bacteria Conference, which was held November 6 - 9, 2011 at the Hyatt Regency Miami in Miami, Florida. The conference was an American Society for Microbiology-sponsored meeting devoted to this rapidly developing, yet mature field that transcends the historical boundaries between organisms, and between "medical" and "non-medical" microbiology. Conference Objective: The primary objective of this conference was to act as a unique conduit for the exchange and synthesis of new ideas among leading US and international scientists working on bacterial communication, to foster the next generation of scientists to work in this area, and to attract other researchers (particularly those in systems and synthetic biology, evolution and ecology, and chemistry) to this exciting field. It was anticipated that this conference would stimulate and expand the cell-cell communication community, leading to outstanding discourse and productive new collaborations. Conference Participation: The conference had 193 attendees, who gave in total 44 oral presentations and 103 poster presentations, representing 77% direct participation. In addition, the conference had a large international contingent: 41% of the participants were from 22 countries other than the United States. The number of students in attendance was also high: 22% of the participants were graduate students. This significant number of graduate students attending the conference is an indication of the high training impact of the conference and that the field of bacterial cell-cell communication is attracting many people who will become our future’s leading biologists. There was a broad representation among the composition of the speakers. Of the 20 invited speakers (45% of the oral presentations), 30% were women, 10% were minority, and 30% were pre-tenure faculty. The 24 platform speakers were all selected from the submitted abstracts and were 55% of the oral presentations. They were comprised of 33% women and 8% under-represented minorities in science, and 75 % were young researchers, which included 21% graduate students, 37% post-doctoral fellows, and 17% pre-tenure faculty. In addition 43% of the 7 session chairs were women. There was a large international presence among the presenters, as 40% of the invited speakers were international and 30% of the platform speakers and sessions chairs were international. Conference Survey Summary: A survey of the attendees conducted by the ASM indicated that the conference was extremely successful. The results can be summarized as follows: 95% of the attendees indicated that it would be extremely valuable to repeat the meeting and they would attend a conference on this topic again. There was a roughly even split between those requesting that it be offered every two years or every three years. On a scale of 1-10, 93% of the attendees gave a ranking of 8 or higher to the statement that "they would recommend this conference to a colleague". Approximately 96% indicated that the speakers were rated as excellent (60%) or good (36%) The instruction was rated at the right level by 98% of the attendees and same percentage felt that the conference was the appropriate length. The organization of the conference was rated by 99% as excellent (62%) or good (37%). Finally, the conference attracted a broad and evenly represented set of microbiology specialties with the conference attendees listing their main research interests as bacterial pathogenesis (26%), environmental microbiology (17%); general microbiology (33%); and molecular and cell biology (21%).
