Intellectual Merit: The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Conference on Molecular Genetics of Bacteria and Phages will be held August 24-28, 2010 at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. This meeting is a central forum for the presentation of new results in bacterial molecular genetics. Approximately 250 participants will attend, representing laboratories throughout the world, and most attendees will present either short talks or posters. The breadth of the conference makes it an important focus for the exchange of information in this era of scientific specialization. Topics covered will include Molecular Evolution, Systems Biology & Genomics, Development, Cell Signaling & Cell-Cell Interactions, Mechanism & Regulation of Transcription, Bacterial Metabolism & Physiology, DNA Replication, Recombination & Transposition, Translation & Post-transcriptional Regulation, Bacteriophage Biology, Bacterial Cell Surfaces.
Broader Impacts: The meeting will provide an outstanding opportunity for participation by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and for those from underrepresented groups. For many, this is the first large meeting at which they have an opportunity to speak, and the highly interactive nature of the meeting allows these young scientists to meet and talk to the senior scientists they know from the literature. Thus, it plays a vital role in building scientific networks.
Arranged by: James Hu, Texas A&M University Petra Levin, Washington University Malcolm Winkler, Indiana University Bloomington 169 participants The Molecular Genetics of Bacteria & Phages meeting was attended by 169 participants and featured 74 oral presentations, and 82 poster presentations. Bacteria and phages continue to provide critical insights into diverse areas of biology, ranging from ecology, evolution, and diversity, to gene expression and development, to infectious diseases. The 2010 meeting featured exciting presentations covering all of these topics and continued the historical strength of Phage meetings in combining long-term themes of molecular microbiology with cutting edge approaches and exciting new research areas. A highlight of the meeting was the keynote lecture preceding the banquet by long-time participant Susan Gottesman (NIH) who coupled a review of her career in bacterial molecular biology with recognition of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jacques Monod. Another celebration was for the long, continuous participation of Wisconsin’s Waclaw Szybalski, whose generous support of the CSHL library was recognized. The opening session focused on development, cell signaling and cell-cell interactions. Session chair Mike Laub (MIT) touched on several recurring themes of the meeting in his description of how Caulobacter uses the kinetics of phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of key regulators to control its asymmetric cell division. Other topics in this session explored extracellular and envelope-associated factors involved in bacterial programmed cell death, virulence, and biofilm development, including a functional analysis of the master regulator of Bacillus anthracis, induction of endoribonucleolytic activity by a toxin-antitoxin system in Escherichia coli, roles of signal peptidases in stimulating gene expression during biofilm formation in Bacillus subtilis, and regulation of virulence by small RNAs in Vibrio cholera. Michelle Giglio (IGS Maryland) presented an overview of the Human Microbiome Project, and chaired a session with many other thought-provoking examples of how genomes and metagenomes are opening new areas of biology. Ry Young (Texas A&M) chaired the session on Bacterial Cell Surfaces, and presented a talk on the discovery of spanin proteins that mediate the destruction of the inner membrane, peptidoglycan, and outer membrane by phages of gram-negative bacteria. Bryce Nichols (Rutgers) chaired the next session devoted to Mechanism and Regulation of Transcription. His talk concerned the detection of nanoRNAs that can prime transcription initiation in vivo. Robert Britton (Michigan State) led the session on Translational and Posttranscriptional Regulation, which he started with a talk on the role of conserved GTPases in ribosome assembly. Each oral session and the poster sessions were characterized by active discussion. The oral session and posters were presented by a mix of PIs, postdoctoral fellows, and advanced graduate students. These high-quality presentations by postdoctoral fellows and graduate students are a unique aspect of this meeting. The examples of the topics mentioned above are just a small sampling of what participants agreed was an outstanding meeting touching broad areas of the molecular genetics of bacteria and phage.
