2026 Conference Schedule

*Tentative Schedule – Details Subject to Change*

Monday	August 3
12:00pm	Registration	Annex Room
4:45pm	Opening Reception	Tripp Commons
6:15pm	Introductions and Sternberg Announcement	Shannon Hall
6:30pm	Keynote Address: Andrew Camilli Genetic Analysis of the Arms Race Between Vibrio cholerae and Phages	Shannon Hall
7:30pm-9:30pm	Session I: Surface Sensing, Motility, and Biofilms Session Chair: David Hershey	Shannon Hall
7:30pm	Introduction to Session	David Hershey
8:00pm	A branching cell-fate decision in biofilm dispersal enables long-term surface persistence	Sandhya Kasivisweswaran
8:15pm	Spontaneous phenotypic bimodality drives pattern formation and fitness advantages in biofilm-forming bacteria	Jung-Shen Benny Tai
8:30pm	Perturbation of Essential Fatty Acids Promotes Biofilm Formation in Pseudomonas aeruginosa	Bill Heelan
8:45pm	Pterin-Dependent Control of Surface Attachment and Biofilm Formation in Agrobacterium tumefaciens	Clay Fuqua
9:00pm	Shear force counterintuitively enhances surface colonization of Pseudomonas aeruginosa	Piyush Sharma
9:15pm	Determining the relationship between 3-D texture and microbial colonization physiology	Shawna Pratt
9:30pm	Late Night Drinks	Sunset Lounge

Tuesday	August 4
8:00am	Registration	Annex Room
8:45am-10:20am	Session II: Stress Responses Session Chair: Sam Yadavalli	Shannon Hall
8:45am	Introduction to Session	Sam Yadavalli
9:15am	Sternberg Awardee:
9:35am	Control of the stringent response under iron limitation in E. coli	Anaïs Berné
9:50am	The Effects of Stress Conditions on PPK and polyP Abundance	Ashley Grothaus
10:05am	A Lon protease adaptor influences desiccation tolerance in Acinetobacter baumannii	Erin Green
10:20am	Break	Sunset Lounge
10:45am-12:00pm	Session II Continued: Session Chair:	Shannon Hall
10:45am	Investigating polyphosphate-mediated protection of Pseudomonas aeruginosa against antibiotic-induced membrane stress	Julius Narh
11:00am	Ribosome hibernation promotes functional protein output in starving bacteria	Nandini Shukla
11:15am	Mapping CsrA-RNA interactome in Acinetobacter baumannii reveals regulation of amino acid utilization	Rosa Sava
11:30am	Disrupting the balance: metal homeostasis as a target of tryglysin-mediated inhibition	Sristi Dey
11:45am	Defining motifs in EspE required for preventing toxicity to Mycobacterium marinum	Yuwei Yang
12:00pm	Lunch and Mentoring Tables:	Tripp Commons
1:00pm	TBD	Old Madison
2:30pm	Poster Session – Even Numbers	2^nd & 4^th Floors
5:00pm	Dinner	Tripp Commons
7:00pm-9:15pm	Session III: Microbial Interactions Session Chair: Albert Siryaporn	Shannon Hall
7:00pm	Introduction to Session	Albert Siryaporn
7:15pm	CRISPR-like arrays are used to process and package Mu-like prophage	Runhang Shu
7:30pm	Quorum sensing inhibition reshapes the transcriptome of the human pathogen Vibrio vulnificus	Logan Geyman
7:45pm	Signaling input from the flagellum uncouples quorum sensing from cell-density regulation in Vibrio species	Wai-Leung Ng
8:00pm	Proteolytic degradation influences quorum sensing in Pseudomonas aeruginosa	Caleb Mallery
8:15pm	Modulation of interbacterial interactions by Pseudomonas aeruginosa quorum sensing	Andrew Frando
8:30pm	Contact-dependent Transcriptional Regulation of ESX Secretion Systems by EspM Through WhiB6 in Mycobacterium smegmatis	Kass Sjostrom
8:45pm	A conserved two-component system controls bacterial behaviors important for honey bee symbiosis	Joselyn Molinar
9:00pm	Mapping Microbes: Spatial Structure in Microbial Communities	Rachel Porter
9:15pm	Late Night Drinks	Sunset Lounge

Wednesday	August 5
8:00am	Registration	Annex Room
8:45am-10:15am	Session IV: Phages and CRISPR Session Chair: Joe Pogliano	Shannon Hall
8:45am	Introduction to Session	Joe Pogliano
9:15am	The Quorum-Sensing Responsive Vibriophage VP882 Has Three Lifestyle Options: Lysogeny, Lysis, and Host Growth Arrest	Grace Beggs
9:30am	Unwinding phage defense: helicases play essential roles in unexplored DarTG antiphage systems	Trevor Griesman
9:45am	An antisense RNA regulates activity of a Bacillus subtilis anti-phage defense protein	Arielle Weinstein
10:00am	Identifying and characterizing secreted peptides with anti-phage activity	Lindsey Grady
10:15am	Break	Sunset Lounge
10:45am-12:00pm	Session IV Continued: Phages and CRISPR Session Chair: Joe Pogliano	Shannon Hall
10:45am	Bacteriophages of the Lyme Disease Spirochete: Domesticated Killers	Brian Stevenson
11:00am	Plasmid-encoded prophage capsid protein induces cell death in Bacillus subtilis	Emily Joyner
11:15am	When a BANDIT strikes: An anti-phage nuclease mimics a phage protein to provide defense	Daniel Saxton
11:30am	Phage remodeling of post-entry replication niches: T7 counteracts bacterial stress-program barriers	Yong Zhang
11:45am	Phage-encoded CasPRs Transcriptionally Silence Diverse CRISPR-Cas Systems	Edith Sanderson
12:00pm	Lunch:	Tripp Commons
1:00pm	BioCyc Tutorial	Old Madison
2:30pm	Poster Session – Odd Numbers	2^nd & 4^th Floors
5:00pm	Dinner	Tripp Commons
7:00pm-9:20pm	Session V: Systems, Synthetic, and Applied Biology Session Chair: Gemma Reguera	Shannon Hall
7:00pm	Introduction to Session	Gemma Reguera
7:30pm	Microbiome-based therapy – bacterial secretion of gluten-degrading enzymes for celiac disease	Neta Sal-Man
7:45pm	Massively parallel lineage tracking reveals population dynamics of phage-bacteria coevolution	Sarshad Koderivalappil
8:00pm	High-throughput transposon mutagenesis defines the essential genome of diverse phages	Manuela Fuchs
8:15pm	Watching transposon-driven genome evolution in action in Acinetobacter baylyi ADP1-ISx	Isaac Gifford
8:30pm	Engineered phage-based molecular cargo for controlling toxin-producing Microcystis aeruginosa blooms.	Lahiru Jayakody
8:45pm	Bacterial assimilation of nitrous oxide coupled to value-added product generation	Madelynn Spencer
9:00pm	Overcoming restriction-modification barriers to enable genetic manipulation in Burkholderia cepacia	Shivvrart Jha
9:15pm	Late Night Drinks	Sunset Lounge

Thursday	August 6
8:00am	Registration	Annex Room
8:45am-10:15am	Session VI: Signaling and Gene Expression Session Chair: Heather Feaga	Shannon Hall
8:45am	Introduction to Session	Heather Feaga
9:00am	Collided ribosomes with occupied E-sites are rescued by the endonuclease Rae1 and trans-translation	Daniel Tetreault
9:15am	Bacterial ribosome rescue as a mechanism to resolve blocked transcription-translation complexes	Stephanie Leedom
9:30am	A direct role for Escherichia coli translation initiation factor IF2 in overcoming transcriptional impediments to homologous recombination	Himanshi Maheshwari
9:45am	Use your SCULL! Short ORFs deliver ribosomes to downstream genes in mycobacteria	Kerry Brown
10:00am	Mechanism of PA5471.1 leader peptide in the control of PA5471 and MexXY expression	Megan Hinrichsen
10:15am	Break	Sunset Lounge
10:45am-12:00pm	Session VI Continued: Signaling and Gene Expression Session Chair: Heather Feaga	Shannon Hall
10:45am	A light-induced microprotein triggers regulated intramembrane proteolysis to promote photo-sensing in a pathogenic bacterium	Dimitrios Manias
11:00am	The defining features of intrinsic transcription terminators	Robert Battaglia
11:15am	The RNA Chaperone Protein ProQ is a Pleiotropic Regulator in Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli	Abby Robinson
11:30am	The E. coli DEAD box ATPase CsdA, is a NAD+ capped RNA binding protein	Jeremy Bird
11:45am	Investigating the complex signaling architecture of NtrYX in Caulobacter crescentus	Benjamin Stein
12:00pm	Lunch	Tripp Commons
2:00pm-4:00pm	Session VII: Cell Biology Session Chair: Kumaran Ramamurthi	Shannon Hall
2:00pm	Introduction to Session	Kumaran Ramamurthi
2:15pm	16S ribosomal RNA modification drives transcript-specific translation efficiency	Zachory Park
2:30pm	Sternberg Awardee:
2:50pm	A targeted cell lysis mechanism facilitates toxin release in Clostridioides difficile	Shannon Kordus
3:05pm	Obelisks: Mechanisms and impacts of circular RNA replication in bacteria	Maedeh Aghahosseini
3:20pm	From the pole to the septum: evolutionary repurposing of the SPOR domain protein DamX	Elijah Jones
3:35pm	Expanded LysM architecture of MltD in peptidoglycan organization and divisome function in Acinetobacter baumannii	Woojun Park
3:50pm	Ethylene signaling represses nitrogen fixation in Azospirillum brasilense	Ishita Banerjee
4:30pm	5K Run	Meet at Memorial Union Terrace
7:30pm	Poster Session – All Posters	2^nd & 4^th Floors

Friday	August 7
8:00am	Registration	Annex Room
8:45am-10:15am	Session VIII: Chromosomes, Replication, and Repair Session Chair: Xindan Wang	Shannon Hall
8:45am	Introduction to Session	Xindan Wang
9:15am	Characterizing the Bacillus subtilis PriA-DnaD interaction that regulates DNA replication restart	Molly Dolan
9:30am	Revisiting Dps–DNA binding: a topology-dependent mechanism for nucleoid condensation	Zlatas Serebnitskiy
9:45am	Rethinking bacterial “chromatin”: What can it do? What can’t it do? And how do we tell?	Lydia Freddolino
10:00am	Structural and mechanistic insights into replicative helicase loading and translocation by bacterial DnaB helicases	David Jeruzalmi
10:15am	Break	Sunset Lounge
10:45am-12:00pm	Session VIII Continued: Session Chair:	Shannon Hall
10:45am	Identifying strand-specific DNA repair mechanisms when replication encounters strand breaks	Kayla Terlecki
11:00am	Three unique activities of the nucleoid-associated protein GapR may independently influence transcription in bacteria and phage	Lucy Kwiatkowski
11:15am	An anti-plasmid system targeting conjugation machinery may restrict spread of antibiotic resistance plasmids in Acinetobacter baumannii	Alexis McCalla
11:30am	Nucleoid-associated protein HU constrains transcription elongation to influence cellular functions, virulence, and drug tolerance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis	Meghna Santoshi
11:45am	rDNA proximity promotes dynamic gene-duplication-amplification of a multidrug efflux pump for rapid evolution of delafloxacin resistance in Staphylococcus aureus	Megan Behrmann
12:00pm	Lunch and Mentoring Tables:	Tripp Commons
2:30-5:30pm	Session IX: Cell Structure and Cell Wall Session Chair: Steven Rutherford	Shannon Hall
2:30pm	Introduction to Session	Steven Rutherford
2:45pm	Extension motor eviction regulates type IV pilus dynamic activity	Abby Teipen
3:00pm	Type VII secretion system assembly across the cell wall of Staphylococcus aureus	Maksym Bobrovskyy
3:15pm	Rapid activation of dormant type IV pili enables a dispersal-infection tradeoff in environments with fluctuating nutrients	Ahmed Yusuf
3:30pm	A role for FtsN in coordinating cell wall synthesis and remodeling at the division site of Escherichia coli	Tien Nguyen
3:45pm	Flipping the switch: how GpsB phosphorylation controls antibiotic resistance in S. aureus	Lily McKnight
4:00pm	Acidic pH alters beta-lactam efficacy by changing activity of Penicillin-Binding Proteins in E. coli	Kyra Raines
4:15pm	A feast of peril: dietary LCFAs suppress MSHA pili to foster Vibrio cholerae environment-host transitions	Kyle Floyd
4:30pm	Defining the role of candidate zinc metallochaperones in Acinetobacter baumannii antibiotic resistance	D. Annie Doyle
4:45pm	Architecture and Dynamics of the Prepilin Peptidase/Methyltransferase PilD	Katina Forest
5:00pm	Closing Remarks
5:30pm	Closing Dinner	Tripp Commons
7:30pm	Late Night Drinks & Dance Party	Tripp Commons