Intellectual Merit: The Eighteenth Microbial Genomics Conference will be held September 12-16, 2010, at the UCLA Conference Center at Lake Arrowhead, California. The meeting is aimed at fostering interactions among scientists from multiple disciplines who are studying various aspects of microbial biology enabled by the wealth of genomic information and bioinformatics technologies developed during recent years. This conference will include active genome researchers, such as sequencing experts and informatics specialists working in database design, sequence analysis, or simulation; geneticists developing new methods to take advantage of genomic information, e.g. for functional analysis; and cell biologists and biochemists who have specialized in basic science areas now ripe for genomics such as metabolism, chromosome structure, or gene regulation. One focus of this conference will be on microbial communities and biodiversity, including the human microbiome (the collection of microorganisms in the human body). Another focus will be on finding new methods of annotation, as the conference includes a workshop on genome annotation.
Broader Impacts: This meeting has become established as a major annual microbial genomics conference during the last eighteen years. It continues to offer a major opportunity for young investigators and students to attend, present their research as posters or talks, and discuss recent findings with leading researchers in the field. This exchange of ideas is critically important to network- and career-building.
The intellectual merit of the conference is in the dissemination of knowledge about the state of research in the field of microbial genomics to a set of students and researchers. Because the top people in the field were represented, the intellectual component of the presentations was extremely high. The extensive discussions between participants allowed a number of collaborations to be formed. Two key areas were focused on. These were the human microbiome, and the Annotation Workshop. Understanding and dissecting the human microbiome is at the forfront of this field. The average person carries between 6 and 12 pounds of bacteria, and in fact there are more bacterial cells in the human body than human cells. Understanding how these bacteria change with changing diets and exposure to antibitic regimens is crucial for designing life style guidelines that promote the maintenance of these helpful bacteria. This is one of the broader impacts of the conference. The second is the formation of a central group that coordinates annotation efforts of genomes. Annotation is the weak link in the chaing of information flow from genome sequencing to understanding how cells funciton. Thelarge number of people working on annotation has now been coalesced into a network that will advance this field.
