CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
| Monday | August 5 | |
| 12:00pm | Registration | Annex Room |
| 4:45pm | Opening Reception | Tripp Commons |
| 6:15pm | Introductions and Sternberg Announcement | Shannon Hall |
| 6:30pm | Keynote Address: To Build a Biofilm: Polymicrobial Airway Communities in Cystic Fibrosis
Dr. George O’Toole |
Shannon Hall |
| 7:30pm-9:30pm | Session I: Host Microbe Interactions
Session Chair: Ana Flores-Mireles |
Shannon Hall |
| 7:30pm | Title TBD | Ana Flores-Mireles |
| 8:00pm | Conformational Ensembles in Klebsiella pneumoniae FimH Impact Uropathogenesis | Edward Lopatto |
| 8:15pm | FLIM Imaging of mCherryTYG Deciphers pH Dynamics and Lifestyle of Salmonella Typhimurium | Moirangthem Kiran Singh |
| 8:30pm | Bordetella Deploys a Microtubule-Binding Protein to Colonize Respiratory Epithelia | Michael Costello |
| 8:45pm | Phollow: Visualizing Gut Bacteriophage Transmission within Microbial Communities and Living Animals | Lizett Ortiz de Ora |
| 9:00pm | Mycobacterium tuberculosis glutamate homeostasis: bridging environmental pH and growth control | Elizabeth Billings |
| 9:15pm | Genetic analysis of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacter hormaechei fitness during bloodstream infection | Beth Ottosen |
| 9:30pm | Late Night Drinks | Sunset Lounge |
| Tuesday | August 6 | |
| 8:00am | Registration | Annex Room |
| 8:45am-10:20am | Session II: Bacterial Systems Biology
Session Chair: Carol Gross |
Shannon Hall |
| 8:45am | Session Introduction | Carol Gross |
| 9:00am | The Phenotypic Landscape of Bacillus subtilis | Lili Kim |
| 9:15am | Sternberg Awardee: Systems approaches to characterize phenotypic heterogeneity in bacterial populations | Sydney Blattman |
| 9:35am | Sequence-Based Regulation of Bacillus subtilis Rho Shapes Genome Composition | K. Julia Dierksheide |
| 9:50am | PAS and Cache: homologous small molecule binding sensors conserved from bacteria to humans | Igor Jouline |
| 10:05am | Chromatin structure in Streptomyces venezuelae by the interplay of Lsr2 and LsrL shapes secondary metabolite production | Vivian Ramirez |
| 10:20am | Break | Sunset Lounge |
| 10:45am-12:00pm | Session II Continued: Bacterial Systems Biology
Session Chair: Carol Gross |
Shannon Hall |
| 10:45am | Cross-Species Cold Shock Response Comparison Uncovers Novel Gene Functions in Cell Homeostasis and Post-Transcriptional Regulation | Yan Zhang |
| 11:00am | Constructing a Gene Expression to Growth Rate Phenotype Map for a Model Metabolic Pathway | Phillip M. Brown |
| 11:15am | Inducible Transposon Mutagenesis for Genome-scale Forward Genetics | David Basta |
| 11:30am | Nutrient availability in Escherichia coli batch culture | Andrew Janeiro |
| 11:45am | Revisiting the y-ome of Escherichia coli | Lisa Moore |
| 12:00pm | Lunch & Mentoring Tables | Tripp Commons |
| 1:00pm | CANCELLED – Alphafold Workshop | Old Madison |
| 2:30pm | Poster Session – Even Numbers | 2nd & 4th Floors |
| 5:00pm | Dinner | Tripp Commons |
| 7:00pm-9:15pm | Session III: Cell & Membrane Biology
Session Chair: Luisa Hiller |
Shannon Hall |
| 7:00pm | Tiny Voices with Big Outcomes: Elucidating Pneumococcal Cell-Cell Communication | Luisa Hiller |
| 7:30pm | Protein coopted from a phage restriction system dictates orthogonal cell division plane selection in Staphylococcus aureus | Felix Ramos-Leon |
| 7:45pm | Biophysical Investigations of Outer Membrane Vesiculation Mediated By the Salmonella Outer Membrane Protein PagC Reveal Conformational Dynamics in Response to Protonation State | Nicholas Wood |
| 8:00pm | Identification of a new family of peptidoglycan transpeptidases reveals unusual crosslinking is essential for viability in Clostridioides difficile | Kevin Bollinger |
| 8:15pm | Identification of a Novel Extracellular Lipoprotein Acetylation Pathway in Bacillus subtilis | Rachel Wigmore |
| 8:30pm | DNA binding is rate-limiting for natural transformation | Courtney Ellison |
| 8:45pm | Reduce, reuse, recycle: cell wall recycling and scavenging in mycobacteria | Stefanos Stravoravdis |
| 9:00pm | Molecular insights into the DbfQRS regulatory pathway in Vibrio cholerae: From membrane stress to biofilm regulation. | Emmy Nguyen |
| 9:15pm | Late Night Drinks | Sunset Lounge |
| Wednesday | August 7 | |
| 8:00am | Registration | Annex Room |
| 8:45am-10:15am | Session IV: Phages & CRISPR
Session Chair: Karen Maxwell |
Shannon Hall |
| 8:45am | Prophages mediate superinfection exclusion to ensure survival of their viral progeny | Karen Maxwell |
| 9:15am | Dual Regulation of Gene Transfer Agent Activation and Host Cell Lysis in Caulobacter crescentus | Emma Banks |
| 9:30am | Conserved jumbo phage factors required for protein import into a phage nucleus | Claire Kokontis |
| 9:45am | A toxin-antitoxin-chaperone system that deploys an mRNA ADP-ribosyltransferase to achieve anti-viral defense | Christopher Doering |
| 10:00am | Functional Metagenomic Selections Reveal Diverse Anti-phage Defenses from Environmental and Commensal Microbiomes | Kevin Forsberg |
| 10:15am | Break | Sunset Lounge |
| 10:45am-12:00pm | Session IV Continued: Phages & CRISPR
Session Chair: Karen Maxwell |
Shannon Hall |
| 10:45am | Tail Tales – Revealing the Intricate Regulation of Phage Tail-like Particle Production in Pseudomonas | Clara Margot Heiman |
| 11:00am | Precise control of DNA replication during phage lambda decision-making and lysogeny | Zihao Yu |
| 11:15am | A Phage Orphan Antitoxin Enzyme Neutralizes the DarTG1 Toxin-Antitoxin Defense System | Michele LeRoux |
| 11:30am | Phage co-opt a bacterial DNA structuring protein to hijack topoisomerase activity | Monica Guo |
| 11:45am | One size does not fit all: examining molecular mechanisms of prophage induction in the gastrointestinal environment. | Kat Pick |
| 12:00pm | Lunch | Tripp Commons |
| 1:00pm | BioCyc Tutorial | Old Madison |
| 2:30pm | Poster Session – Odd Numbers | 2nd & 4th Floors |
| 5:00pm | Dinner | Tripp Commons |
| 7:00pm-9:20pm | Session V: Beneficial Microbes
Session Chair: Mark Mandel |
Shannon Hall |
| 7:00pm | Session Introduction | Mark Mandel |
| 7:15pm | A predicted transmembrane RNA-binding protein regulates multiple symbiosis relevant processes in Vibrio fischeri | Jacob Vander Griend |
| 7:30pm | Sternberg Awardee: Cyclic Diguanylate Inhibits Beneficial Host Colonization by Vibrio fischeri” | Ruth Isenberg |
| 7:50pm | Supplementation of the aspartate-derived amino acids are required for Xenorhabdus nematophila to enter exponential growth phase in defined media. | Cameron Moore |
| 8:05pm | Gut Microbiota Represent a Major Thermogenic Biomass as Revealed by Calorimetry | John Kirby |
| 8:20pm | Raffinose Family Oligosaccharide utilization by Bacteroides species | Anubhav Basu |
| 8:35pm | The antibacterial activity of a prophage-encoded fitness factor is neutralized by two cognate immunity proteins | Andrea Gabriela Alexei |
| 8:50pm | Epigenetic Control of Bacterial Quorum Sensing and Horizontal DNA Transfer | Tahlia Bastholm |
| 9:05pm | Engineering nitrogen-fixing microbial communities associated with maize and sorghum roots | Jean-Michel Ane |
| 9:20pm | Late Night Drinks | Sunset Lounge |
| Thursday | August 8 | |
| 8:00am | Registration | Annex Room |
| 8:45am-10:45am | Session VI: Signaling & Stress Reponses
Session Chair: Pallavi Ghosh |
Shannon Hall |
| 8:45am | Adaptation to Antibiotic Stress in Mycobacterium abscessus | Pallavi Ghosh |
| 9:15am | Structural and Functional Evolution of a Sigma-(c-di-GMP)-Anti-sigma Switch | Kelley Gallagher |
| 9:30am | AppY, a prophage-encoded transcriptional regulator, also acts as an anti-adaptor, directly stabilizing RpoS in E. coli | Naoual Derdouri |
| 9:45am | (p)ppGpp prevents prophage activation by guanosine toxicity in Bacillus subtilis | Danny Fund |
| 10:00am | A Virulence Signal Controls Carbon Metabolism in Salmonella | Nick Pokorzynski |
| 10:15am | Quorum Sensing and Surface Association Modulate φVP882 Lysis-Lysogeny Transitions in the Vibrio parahaemolyticus Host | Francis Santoriello |
| 10:45am | Break | Sunset Lounge |
| 11:00am-12:00pm | Session VI Continued: Singaling & Stress Reponses
Session Chair: Pallavi Ghosh |
Shannon Hall |
| 11:00am | Characterizing the role of Pseudomonas aeruginosa polyphosphate in killing of Staphylococcus aureus | Jan-Ulrik Dahl |
| 11:15am | Regulation of Local c-di-GMP Networks by Small Molecule Ligands in Pseudomonas fluorescens Biofilm Formation | Yu Fu |
| 11:30am | Structural analyses of the pseudoproteases that control germinant sensing in Clostridioides difficile | Morgan McNellis |
| 11:45am | Lon Protease: The Jaws of Life | Melanie Cragan |
| 12:00pm | Lunch | Tripp Commons |
| 2:00pm-4:00pm | Session VII: Chromosomes and Replication
Session Chair: Prahathees Eswara |
Shannon Hall |
| 2:00pm | Lucky, by MraZ – elucidating the role of DnaA in cell division inhibition | Prahathees Eswara |
| 2:30pm | Sternberg Awardee: Organization of the multipartite genome in Agrobacterium tumefaciens | Zhongqing (Warren) Ren |
| 2:50pm | E. coli does not repair replication stress-induced DNA damage | Matthew Cooke |
| 3:05pm | How Bacterial 5′ Nucleases Cleave Branched DNA and How Stopping them Might Lead to a New Class of Novel Antimicrobial Agents | John Sayers |
| 3:20pm | Mechanism of bacterial DNA segregation: LLPS behavior, beyond trend and reality | Perrene Revoil |
| 3:35pm | Replication-transcription collisions shape bacterial genome organization. | Sabari Sankar Thirupathy |
| 3:50pm | A Solitary DNA Methyltransferase and its Secret Partner | Noemie Matthey |
| 4:30pm | 5K Run | Meet at Memorial Union Terrace |
| 7:30pm | Poster Session – All Posters | 2nd & 4th Floors |
| Friday | August 9 | |
| 8:00am | Registration | Annex Room |
| 8:45am-10:15am | Session VIII: Bacterial Physiology
Session Chair: Bruno Lima |
Shannon Hall |
| 8:45am | Title TBD | Bruno Lima |
| 9:15am | The broad-spectrum racemase, BsrF, enables utilization and catabolism of D-amino acids in Vibrio fischeri | Karoline Dittmer |
| 9:30am | Observation of (p)ppGpp dynamics at the population and single-cell levels in B. subtilis | Molly Hydorn |
| 9:45am | Discovery of a sRNA Regulating Natural Transformation in a Multidrug-Resistant Isolate of Acinetobacter baumannii | Mikaela Daum |
| 10:00am | Evolving communication: how clinical Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains are becoming more virulent | Kayla Simanek |
| 10:15am | Break | Sunset Lounge |
| 10:45am-12:00pm | Session VIII Continued: Bacterial Physiology
Session Chair: Bruno Lima |
Shannon Hall |
| 10:45am | Diverse Pseudomonads Counter Antagonism Using a Conserved Strategy with Specialized Implementation | David Brinkley |
| 11:00am | Reproductive Plasticity within the Alphaproteobacterial Genus Henriciella | Amelia Randich |
| 11:15am | Reconstitution of Protein-based Organelle Trafficking in Escherichia coli | Y Hoang |
| 11:30am | lluminating the essential role of lipopolysaccharide in gram-negative bacterial physiology | Ryan Valdez |
| 11:45am | A Comprehensive CRISPR Screen to Identify Novel Regulators of the Unique Cell Cycle of Borrelia burgdorferi | Rebecca Trimble |
| 12:00pm | Lunch | Tripp Commons |
| 2:30-5:30pm | Session IX: Regulation of Gene Expression
Session Chair: Elizabeth Campbell |
Shannon Hall |
| 2:30pm | Session Introduction | Elizabeth Campbell |
| 2:45pm | Cell-free genomics reveals fundamental regulatory principles of essential transcription initiation and termination factors in Mycobacterium tuberculosis | Ruby Froom |
| 3:00pm | The RNA Helicase HrpA Rescues Ribosomes Stalled by Antibiotics | Annabelle Campbell |
| 3:15pm | Re-defining how mRNA degradation is coordinated with transcription and translation in bacteria | Sangjin Kim |
| 3:30pm | The monomeric transcriptional regulator Spx represses motility in Bacillus subtilis through the master motility regulator DegU | Abby Jackson |
| 3:45pm | Both linear and bridged H-NS nucleoprotein filaments appear to silence transcription genome-wide in E. coli | Christine Hustmyer |
| 4:00pm | The regulatory functions of the ESX-1 substrates EspE and EspF are separable from secretion | Rebecca Prest |
| 4:15pm | The Zn Finger Protein MucR Acts as an H-NS-like Protein to Regulate Host-Association and Virulence in Brucella spp. | Ian Barton |
| 4:30pm | Being doubly sure: Quorum sensing system regulates type III secretion system through a dual mechanism in V. campbellii | Payel Paul |
| 4:45pm | Pseudomonas aeruginosa mediates differential iron regulation of the Rsm sRNAs | Rhishita Chourashi |
| 5:00pm | Closing Remarks | |
| 5:30pm | Closing Dinner | Tripp Commons |
| 7:30pm | Late Night Drinks | Tripp Commons |