Conference Description
The Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) on Microbial Stress Response will be held in conjunction with the Microbial Stress Response Gordon Research Conference at Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA. The goal of this 2-day GRS is to provide a platform for early-career scientists to showcase unpublished research on how bacteria evade and/or respond to stress. We also aim to promote the formation of a collaborative research community among graduate students, post-docs, and junior faculty. In addition to a keynote presentation and a mentorship panel, we will have two sessions consisting of talks, which have been chosen from the submitted abstracts.
Our first full session of talks (on Day 1) is entitled "All things considered: A global view on how extracellular environments and population interactions shape bacterial stress responses". This session will feature a broad set of topics including but not limited to: (1) Microbe-Host Interactions, (2) Stress dynamics within Microbial Communities, including Quorum sensing and Biofilm formation, (3) Bacterial Persistence, Sporulation and Subpopulation responses, and (4) Microbial cell surface recognition elements and Signal Transduction. The second full session (on Day 2) is entitled "Small things considered: A focused view of how molecular interactions shape the bacterial stress response". This session will present a more molecular view, on topics including, but not limited to: (1) Science at the Single-Cell level, (2) Gene silencing, DNA damage and replication effects, (3) Molecular responses to bacteriophage infection and antibiotic challenge, and (4) Regulation by signaling molecules, including the stringent response, small RNAs, and transcription/translation factors.
Poster presentations illustrating the diverse systems used for survival under stress will be held on both days of the seminar. With a view of enhancing our perspective on potential careers in microbiology, the Mentor Panel is composed of faculty and staff scientists from diverse academic and government institutions as well as from the biotech industry. An informal Q&A session with these professionals on Day 2 of the GRS will contribute to the professional development of all GRS attendees.
