2018 Microbial Stress Response Gordon Research Conference and Seminar
Abstract
Bacteria inhabit every niche on the face of the planet ranging from hydrothermal vents, to lakes hidden under the polar ice caps, to the intestines of mammals. Accordingly, these microbes have evolved numerous clever and unique strategies to cope with a wide range of challenging conditions. Bacteria possess complex regulatory circuits that coordinate metabolic flux with growth, cell envelope composition, and cell cycle progression to ensure the efficient partitioning of limited resources, maximize proliferative potential, and preserve viability in response to frequently changing conditions. These critical regulatory networks are the bacterial equivalent of an Achilles heel, as defects in these systems render bacteria unable to adapt to changes in temperature, nutrient availability, osmotic and oxidative stress, and challenges presented by antibiotics, other microbes, and host immune systems. Delineating and understanding how microbes respond to stress impacts areas such as biotechnology, ecology, environmental biology, geochemical cycles, as well as the symbiosis and pathogenesis relationships that microbes establish with their eukaryotic hosts. The latest advances in the field will be the subject of the 2018 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Microbial Stress Response to be held from July 15-20 at Mount Holyoke College. Together with the accompanying Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) (July 14-15) aimed at student and postdoctoral level investigators, this meeting brings together a demographically diverse group of 200 international scientists seeking to understand how microbes sense and respond to challenging and ever-changing environments. In addition to welcoming investigators from academia, we are also inviting researchers from companies, federal labs and funding agencies (e.g. ARO, ONR, NSF). Attendees are encouraged to present posters of their most exciting research. Emphasis will be placed on new approaches to understanding interactions between microbes and the environment, particularly modem imaging, genetic, metagenomic, and computational strategies for the analysis of bacterial physiology and community structures under conditions of stress and competition. The diversity of attendees and the highly interactive nature of the meeting ensures that students and postdoctoral attendees will be exposed to a wide range of opportunities to apply their knowledge of microbial stress response mechanisms in both basic and applied settings.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Sep 11, 2018
- Source ID
- W911NF1810096
Entities
People
- Petra Levin
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- Gordon Research Conferences
- United States Army