Conference Description
The Microbial Stress Response GRC is a premier, international scientific conference focused on advancing the frontiers of science through the presentation of cutting-edge and unpublished research, prioritizing time for discussion after each talk and fostering informal interactions among scientists of all career stages. The conference program includes a diverse range of speakers and discussion leaders from institutions and organizations worldwide, concentrating on the latest developments in the field. The conference is five days long and held in a remote location to increase the sense of camaraderie and create scientific communities, with lasting collaborations and friendships. In addition to premier talks, the conference has designated time for poster sessions from individuals of all career stages, and afternoon free time and communal meals allow for informal networking opportunities with leaders in the field.
Bacteria face a nearly constant onslaught of diverse stressors both expected (e.g., nutrient fluctuations, temperature changes, phage predation, etc) and unknown (e.g., novel antibiotics, unanticipated changes in environment, etc). How they detect and respond to such stressors largely determines their survival in a world of fierce competition. The 2024 Microbial Stress Response GRC will feature the latest, cutting-edge research into all facets of how bacteria sense, respond, and adapt to stress. The talks and posters presented will showcase the many approaches being taken to understand bacterial stress responses, including genetic, biochemical, structural, imaging, computational, and genome-scale assays. A range of organisms and scales of study, from the molecular to the population level, will be included.
The program will feature a diverse and distinguished set of invited speakers as well as many talks selected from submitted abstracts that highlight early-stage investigators, postdocs, and graduate students. Daily poster sessions will be a major element of the meeting, enabling the dynamic exchange of new results and ongoing work, while promoting interactions between conference participants at every level. Diversity and inclusion will be emphasized throughout the meeting, with a GRC Power Hour focusing on group discussion. Finally, as in past years, this GRC will be preceded by a GRS that focuses entirely on grad students and postdocs.
The topics, speakers, and discussion leaders for the conference sessions are displayed below. The conference chair is currently developing their detailed program, which will include the complete meeting schedule, as well as the talk titles for all speakers. The detailed program will be available by March 16, 2024. Please check back for updates.
Phage and Predator Stress
Discussion Leaders
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Christina Stallings (Washington University School of Medicine, United States)
Speakers
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Michael Laub (Massachusetts Institute of Technology / Howard Hughes Medical Institute, United States)
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Asma Hatoum-Aslan (University of Alabama, United States)
Systems Approaches to Understand Stress Response
Discussion Leaders
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Frederic Barras (Institut Pasteur, France)
Speakers
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Terence Hwa (UC San Diego, United States)
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Athanasios Typas (European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Germany)
The Role of Small Molecule Regulators in Stress Response
Discussion Leaders
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Vincent Lee (University of Maryland at College Park, United States)
Speakers
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Sonja-Verena Albers (University of Freiburg, Germany)
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Jade Wang (University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States)
Protein Folding and Degradation During Stress
Discussion Leaders
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Jean-Francois Collet (UCLouvain, Belgium)
Speakers
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Julie Maupin-Furlow (University of Florida, United States)
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Kristina Jonas (Stockholm University, Sweden)
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Mehmet Berkmen (New England BioLabs, United States)
Translation and Ribosome Quality Control to Combat Stress
Discussion Leaders
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Michael Ibba (Chapman University, United States)
Speakers
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Jonathan Dworkin (Columbia University, United States)
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Claudio Joazeiro (Heidelberg University, Germany)
Stress at Multiple Spatial Scales: Cell-Cell Interactions, Biofilms, and Cell-surface Interactions
Discussion Leaders
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Lars Dietrich (Columbia University, United States)
Speakers
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Fitnat Yildiz (University of California, Santa Cruz, United States)
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Anupama Khare (National Cancer Institute, United States)
Replication and Transcription During Stress
Discussion Leaders
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Gisela Storz (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, United States)
Speakers
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Jared Schrader (Wayne State University, United States)
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Steve Bell (Indiana University, United States)
Environmental Stress Responses
Discussion Leaders
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Carol Gross (University of California, San Francisco, United States)
Speakers
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Jocelyne DiRuggiero (Johns Hopkins University, United States)
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Aisha Burton (Cornell University, United States)
Stress Of Host-pathogen Interactions
Discussion Leaders
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Sophie Helaine (Harvard Medical School, United States)
Speakers
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Jeremy Rock (Rockefeller University, United States)
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Aimee Shen (Tufts University School of Medicine, United States)
The GRC Power Hourâ„¢
Organizers