This award provides support for the 2011 Microbial Population Biology Gordon Research Conference, a major forum for concepts in pathogen evolution, drug resistance, microbial communities, and more generally, medicine and microbes. Of three emphases of the 2011 meeting, one is the evolution and dynamics of infectious disease. A second focus is our microbiome, the collective multitude of microbes living on us. Perhaps surprisingly, the microbiome may prove relevant to infectious disease and other health issues, such as cancer and obesity. A third focus, new to the 2011 meeting, is the ecology of algae used for biofuels. Promises of algae for fuel have come from engineers in the lab; scaling up production to millions of acre-feet in ponds will require understanding algal ecology, the topic addressed here.
The meeting provides extensive cross-disciplinary interactions. The 180 attendees of this meeting span a breadth of disciplines, and most of those attending have been students and post-doctoral scholars - the future researchers of this country. The 2011 meeting will also include several industry representatives as speakers. As in previous meetings, the organizers have paid close attention to creating a sex ratio of speakers that matches the audience (approximately 1/3) and minority representation.
The Gordon Research Conference on MICROBIAL POPULATION BIOLOGY was held at Proctor Academy, Andover, New Hampshire, July 17 - 22, 2011. The Conference was well-attended with 180 participants (attendees list attached). The attendees represented the spectrum of endeavor in this field coming from academia, industry, and government laboratories, both U.S. and foreign scientists, senior researchers, young investigators, and students. Of the 180 attendees, 114 voluntarily responded to a general inquiry regarding ethnicity which appears on our registration forms. Of the 114 respondents, 12% were Minorities – 3% Hispanic, 6% Asian and 4% African American. Approximately 33% of the participants at the 2011 meeting were women. In designing the formal speakers program, emphasis was placed on current unpublished research and discussion of the future target areas in this field. There was a conscious effort to stimulate lively discussion about the key issues in the field today. Time for formal presentations was limited in the interest of group discussions. In order that more scientists could communicate their most recent results, poster presentation time was scheduled. Attached is a copy of the formal schedule and speaker program and the poster program. In addition to these formal interactions, "free time" was scheduled to allow informal discussions. Such discussions are fostering new collaborations and joint efforts in the field. Thank you for your support of this Conference. As you know, in the interest of promoting the presentation of unpublished and frontier-breaking research, Gordon Research Conferences does not permit publication of meeting proceedings.
