CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
| Monday | August 4 | |
| 12:00pm | Registration | Annex Room |
| 4:45pm | Opening Reception | Tripp Commons |
| 6:15pm | Introductions and Sternberg Announcement | Shannon Hall |
| 6:30pm | Keynote Address: Phenazines Facilitate an Extremely Low Power Maintenance Metabolism on Life’s Metabolic Edge
Dr. Dianne Newman |
Shannon Hall |
| 7:30pm-9:30pm | Session I: Host Microbe Interactions
Session Chair: Becky Lamason |
Shannon Hall |
| 7:30pm | Introduction to Session: Dissecting the cellular landscape of Rickettsia-host interactions | Becky Lamason |
| 8:00pm | NO on biofilms: Nitric oxide promotes Vibrio cholerae biofilm dispersal and rapid development of motility | Nathaniel Esteves |
| 8:15pm | Orthogonal cell division in Staphylococcus aureus ensures uniform distribution of surface proteins to evade host defenses | Felix Ramos-Leon |
| 8:30pm | Clostridioides difficile uses host-derived glutathione as a source of cysteine during infection | Anna Gregory |
| 8:45pm | Bacterium Acts as Toxin Sponge to Protect its Fungal Partner from Antifungal Compounds | Alyssia Gonzalez |
| 9:00pm | Metabolic flexibility through nonredundant isoprenoid biosynthesis pathways in Mycobacterium marinum | Christine Qabar |
| 9:15pm | Characterizing The Role Of Ethylene Signals On Nitrogen Fixation And Metabolic Adaptation In Azospirillum Brasilense | Ishita Banerjee |
| 9:30pm | Late Night Drinks | Sunset Lounge |
| Tuesday | August 5 | |
| 8:00am | Registration | Annex Room |
| 8:45am-10:20am | Session II: Systems and Synthetic Biology
Session Chair: Bryan Davies |
Shannon Hall |
| 8:45am | Introduction to Session: Microcin diversity and prevalence | Bryan Davies |
| 9:00am | A dual-function microcin enables biofilm formation | Mady Telford |
| 9:15am | A Parallel Cheminformatic and Directed Evolution Approach to Enzymatic Enhancement in Pseudomonas putida | Tejas Navaratna |
| 9:30am | Two to Tango: RhlR Integrates Dual Inputs to Orchestrate Quorum Sensing Gene Regulation in Pseudomonas aeruginosa | Jon Paczkowski |
| 9:45am | Asymmetric Localization of Ser/Thr Kinase Activity during Sporulation | Yihan Wei |
| 10:00am | Engineering novel bacteriophage-based biotherapeutics to target antimicrobial-resistant pathogens | Bryan Lenneman |
| 10:15am | Break | Sunset Lounge |
| 10:45am-12:00pm | Session II Continued: Systems and Synthetic Biology
Session Chair: Byran Davies |
Shannon Hall |
| 10:45am | A systematic approach to understanding and predicting phage-antibiotic interactions | Xukang Shen |
| 11:00am | ppGpp Contributes to Long-term Refrigeration Tolerance | Sarah Anderson |
| 11:15am | Redundant regulation via polyphosphate and the stringent response during cell growth and division. | Christopher Hamm |
| 11:30am | Diverse bacterial pattern recognition receptors sense the conserved phage proteome | Sofia Luengo-Woods |
| 11:45am | Klebsiella pneumoniae factors enhancing bacteremia have distinct contributions to macrophage-mediated, oxidative, and nitrosative stress resistance | Caity Holmes |
| 12:00pm | Lunch and Mentoring Tables | Tripp Commons |
| 2:30pm | Poster Session – Even Numbers | 2nd & 4th Floors |
| 5:00pm | Dinner | Tripp Commons |
| 7:00pm-9:15pm | Session III: Cell Biology and Cell Structure
Session Chair: Anthony Vecchiarelli |
Shannon Hall |
| 7:00pm | Introduction to Session: Yes! Bacteria have organelles. How are they organized? | Anthony Vecchiarelli |
| 7:15pm | The Role of Polyphosphate in Carboxysome Localization and Dynamics | Claire Dudley |
| 7:30pm | Signal peptidase SpsB coordinates staphylococcal cell cycle, surface protein septal trafficking, and LTA synthesis | Ran Zhang |
| 7:45pm | Coordination of Motility and Cell Division in Borrelia burgdorferi | Philip Adams |
| 8:00pm | Mis-localization of PBPs in Staphylococcus aureus gdpP mutant contributes to β-lactam resistance and surface protein cross-wall trafficking | Yaosheng Jia |
| 8:15pm | Cyclic enterobacterial common antigen biogenesis requires the interplay between linear ECA regulation and an uncharacterized function unique to WzzE | Joseph Carr |
| 8:30pm | Structural modeling reveals the allosteric switch controlling the chitin utilization program of Vibrio cholerae | Holly Anderson |
| 8:45pm | It’s in their RNA:
A-to-I mRNA editing is widespread and affects protein sequence and function in bacteria |
Dan Bar Yaacov |
| 9:00pm | Conformational Dynamics of the Massive HflK/C Membrane Assembly Support Bacterial Recovery from Stress. | Alireza Ghanbarpour |
| 9:15pm | Late Night Drinks | Sunset Lounge |
| Wednesday | August 6 | |
| 8:00am | Registration | Annex Room |
| 8:45am-10:15am | Session IV: Phages & CRISPR
Session Chair: Lanying Zeng |
Shannon Hall |
| 8:45am | Introduction to Session: Single-cell studies of phage infection dynamics | Lanying Zeng |
| 9:15am | Sternberg Awardee: Mechanisms of phage detection by bacterial innate immune proteins | Tong Zhang |
| 9:35am | Bacteriophage infection drives loss of β-lactam resistance and virulence in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus | Charlie Mo |
| 9:50am | Mycobacteriophage TM4 requires XylR for successful infection in Mycobacterium smegmatis | Annesha Adhikari |
| 10:05am | Characterising the role of PglZ in the BREX phage defense system | Jennifer Readshaw |
| 10:20am | Break | Sunset Lounge |
| 10:45am-12:00pm | Session IV Continued: Phages & CRISPR
Session Chair: Lanying Zeng |
Shannon Hall |
| 10:45am | Sternberg Honorable Mention: | Nicolas Keith |
| 11:00am | A new toxin-antitoxin system, StaIN, utilizes DNA repeat units to mediate antiphage defense | Tori Boyle |
| 11:15am | Using Tn-seq to screen genes of the virulent cholera phage ICP1 | Elizabeth Tan |
| 11:30am | A minimal CRISPR polymerase produces decoy cyclic nucleotides to detect phage anti-defense proteins | Ashley Sullivan |
| 11:45am | Characterizing an N4-like phage that infects Caulobacter crescentus | Maeve Mclaughlin |
| 12:00pm | Lunch | Tripp Commons |
| 2:30pm | Poster Session – Odd Numbers | 2nd & 4th Floors |
| 5:00pm | Dinner | Tripp Commons |
| 7:00pm-9:20pm | Session V: Microbial Communities
Session Chair: Josephine Chandler |
Shannon Hall |
| 7:00pm | Introduction to Session: From cooperation to conflict: Quorum sensing and interspecies interactions | Josephine Chandler |
| 7:15pm | Quorum sensing reprogramming alters cooperativity in Pseudomonas aeruginosa | Blanca Rodriguez |
| 7:30pm | Streptococcal Natural Products Mediate Interspecies Competition with Gram-Positive Bacteria | Ruth Isenberg |
| 7:45pm | Separation of Intact Viable Phages by Capillary Zone Electrophoresis for Improved Imaging, Recovery, and Host-Pair Discovery | Elizabeth Chang |
| 8:00pm | Characterization of a M. luteus-produced class III lipolanthine with anti-Staphylococcus aureus properties. | Flavia Costa |
| 8:15pm | Surface-mediated phage resistance increases susceptibility to interbacterial antagonism | Chia-En Tsai |
| 8:30pm | A conserved nuclease facilitates environmental DNA uptake | Rebecca Hinrichs |
| 8:45pm | Investigating the connection between amino acid utilization and antibiotic sensitivity in uropathogenic E. coli strains | Travis LaGree |
| 9:00pm | Negative Frequency-Dependent Selection of Phage Weaponization in Biofilms | Yixuan Peng |
| 9:15pm | Late Night Drinks | Sunset Lounge |
| Thursday | August 7 | |
| 8:00am | Registration | Annex Room |
| 8:45am-10:45am | Session VI: Stress Reponses
Session Chair: Matthew Cabeen |
Shannon Hall |
| 8:45am | Introduction to Session: P. aeruginosa pyocins: careful control for costly competition | Matthew Cabeen |
| 9:15am | Phage Infection Triggers Derepression of Bacterial Immunity to Enhance Defense Against Phage-Encoded Inhibitors | Reid Oshiro |
| 9:30am | BR-bodies promote mRNA storage under stress, contributing to fitness during stress recovery | Hadi Yassine |
| 9:45am | Analysis of stress-induced small proteins in Escherichia coli reveals a connection between distinct signaling systems | Srujana Yadavalli |
| 10:00am | Modular small RNA drives the emergence of virulence traits and environmental trade-offs in Vibrio cholerae | Salvador Almagro-Moreno |
| 10:15am | A bacterial immune system acts at the ribosome to defend against phage | Christina Beck |
| 10:30am | Break | Sunset Lounge |
| 11:00am-12:00pm | Session VI Continued: Stress Responses
Session Chair: Matthew Cabeen |
Shannon Hall |
| 11:00am | Combining multiple stressors blocks bacterial migration and growth | Anuradha Sharma |
| 11:15am | N-acetyltransferases required for iron uptake and aminoglycoside resistance promote virulence lipid production in M. marinum | Bradley Jones |
| 11:30am | Spatio-Temporally Patterned and Regulated Cell Death in the Human Pathogen Vibrio cholerae | Ameya Mashruwala |
| 11:45am | SspA is a Dynamic Transcription Factor in the E. coli DNA Damage & Cellular Stress Responses | Thalia Sass |
| 12:00pm | Lunch and Mentoring Tables | Tripp Commons |
| 2:00pm-4:00pm | Session VII: Chromosomes, Replication and Repair
Session Chair: Rodrigo Reyes |
Shannon Hall |
| 2:00pm | Introduction to Session: Defining DNA replication initiation with live-cell single-molecule microscopy | Rodrigo Reyes |
| 2:30pm | Replication Restart after UV in E. coli: Recombinational Repair of Stalled Forks Triggers Over-replication, Masked by New Initiations from the Origin | Andrei Kuzminov |
| 2:45pm | (p)ppGpp drives stress-induced mutagenesis by inhibiting repair of oxidative DNA damage | Leah McKinney |
| 3:00pm | Purine Nucleotides Regulate the Anti-phage Deoxycytidine Deaminase AvcD | Micah Ferrell |
| 3:15pm | Natural Transformation Promotes Highly Mosaic Outcomes Independent of Mismatch Repair or Global Sequence Content | Jonathan Lombardino |
| 3:30pm | Selective packaging of bacterial host DNA by a transposable phage | Runhang Shu |
| 3:45pm | Just the Tip(N) of the iceberg: A novel role for a coil-coil rich membrane protein in centromere tethering | Morgan Letzkus |
| 4:30pm | 5K Run | Meet at Memorial Union Terrace |
| 7:30pm | Poster Session – All Posters | 2nd & 4th Floors |
| Friday | August 8 | |
| 8:00am | Registration | Annex Room |
| 8:45am-10:15am | Session VIII: Signaling and Gene Expression
Session Chair: Marie Elliot |
Shannon Hall |
| 8:45am | Introduction to Session: Shutting it down: nucleoid-associated protein control of Streptomyces antibiotic production | Marie Elliot |
| 9:15am | Two novel interacting proteins function to repress Streptomyces exploratory growth | Christine Baglio |
| 9:30am | Locus-specific identification of DNA-bound regulatory proteins in bacteria with CATNAPP | Taylor Nye |
| 9:45am | Ribosomal protein bL27 reduces trans-translation activity in E. coli | Divyasorubni Seerpatham |
| 10:00am | Mycobacterium tuberculosis RNA polymerase pausing and effects of NusG and NusA defined at genome-scale and in presence of R-loops | Ezaz Ahmad |
| 10:15am | Break | Sunset Lounge |
| 10:40am-12:00pm | Session VIII Continued: Signaling and Gene Expression
Session Chair: Marie Elliot |
Shannon Hall |
| 10:40am | Sternberg Honorable Mention: Phage Mu Utilizes the Clamp for Late Gene Transcription | Khang Ho |
| 10:55am | The small protein YceO is a regulator of the inner membrane protease RseP | Rilee Zeinert |
| 11:10am | The (p)ppGpp Hydrolase NahA Increases Translation Inhibition Upon Induction of Alarmone Synthesis in Bacillus subtilis | Kevin England |
| 11:25am | Catabolite Activator Protein (CAP) and quorum sensing co-regulate bioluminescence in Vibrio campbellii | Chase Mullins |
| 11:40am | Sternberg Awardee: Promoter inversion and anti-termination control mechanisms regulating capsular polysaccharide biosynthesis in the human gut symbiote Bacteroides fragilis | Jason Saba |
| 12:00pm | Lunch and Mentoring Tables: | Tripp Commons |
| 2:30-5:30pm | Session IX: Microbiome and Genomics
Session Chair: John Brooks |
Shannon Hall |
| 2:30pm | Introduction to Session: The microbiome directs spatially localized rhythms in innate immune functions | John Brooks |
| 2:45pm | Microbiome-Dependent Regionalization of Epithelial Cell Gene Expression in the Large Intestine | Ciara Sanders |
| 3:00pm | Hide and seek: large-scale genomic inversion enable phage evasion in a prevalent gut bacterial species | Shenwei Zhang |
| 3:15pm | Single-Cell RNA Sequencing Reveals Heterogeneity in Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilms | Nasibeh Arabameri |
| 3:30pm | A Structural Investigation of Starch Transport in Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron | Michael Cadigan |
| 3:45pm | Ribosome Profiling Discovery of Unannotated Small Open Reading Frames in Pseudomonas Aeruginosa | Mona Wu Orr |
| 4:00pm | A novel amidoligase post-translationally modifies fimbriae to drive virulence in Klebsiella pneumoniae | Genevieve Dobihal |
| 4:15pm | Genome Organization of Rhizobium leguminosarum | Emma Wiesler |
| 4:30pm | Tailocin-Mediated Killing and Resistance Are Modulated by Hypervariable Coding Region in Xenorhabdus bacteria | Emmanuel Allwell |
| 4:45pm | Multifunctional sponge proteins inhibit various signaling-based bacterial immune systems | Iana Fedorova |
| 5:00pm | Closing Remarks | |
| 5:30pm | Closing Dinner | Tripp Commons |
| 7:30pm | Late Night Drinks & Dance Party | Tripp Commons |