scientific program

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PLENARY PRESENTATIONS

Kevin Marshall
Emeritus Professor, Mosman, New South Wales, Australia

Bo Barker Jørgensen
Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Germany
Center for Geomicrobiology, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Aarhus, Denmark

Mitchell Sogin
Senior Scientist and Director of the
Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution,
Marine Biological Laboratory, USA

Peter Steinberg
Centre for Marine Bio-Innovation
University of New South Wales, Australia

Paul Rainey
New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study, Massy University, New Zealand

Roberto Kolter
Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Harvard Medical School, USA

Norman Pace (Tiedje Awardee)
Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado-Boulder, USA

Steven Lindow
Department of Plant and Microbial Biology,
University of California, USA

Nancy Moran
Regents' Professor Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Joint Professor, Department of Entomology, The University of Arizona, USA

INVITED ORAL SESSIONS

Monday, August 18, 2008, 8:30-10:30
Bacterial Speciation and Microbial Ecology
Biodegradation: Appetite for the unusual
The Biofilm mode of life
Viral Ecology
The Living Soil
The Animal Microbiome

Tuesday, August 19, 2008, 8:30-10:30
Modelling and Theory in Microbial Ecology
Biogeochemical and Elemental Cycles
Novel Technologies and Methods: Metagenomics
Microbial Communities in the Oceans
The Human Microbiome

Thursday, August 21, 2008, 8:30-10:30
Growing the Recalcitrant
Environmental Biotechnology
Novel Technologies and Methods: Functional Community Analysis
Scratch my Back: Microbial Symbionts
Global Climate Change
New Vistas in Microbial Extremes

Friday, August 22, 2008, 8:30-10:30
Single Cell Microbiology
Geomicrobiology and Paleobiology
Novel Technologies and Methods: Interpreting the Data
Coral Microbial Ecology
The Water Cycle
Microbial Communication

Plenary Presentations

Sunday, August 17, 2008, 16:10

Microbial Ecology and the Blue Planet

Kevin Marshall
Emeritus Professor, Mosman, New South Wales, Australia

Kevin Marshall obtained his BScAgr (Hons I) from the University of Sydney in
1954 and was employed at the New South Wales Department of Agriculture
as a Bacteriologist working on root-nodule bacteria until he went to Cornell
University in 1957.   He obtained his MS in 1969 and his PhD in 1961.  He
then worked in CSIRO, Perth, on the survival of clover rhizobia, where he
found the addition of certain clays to sandy soils in hot summer conditions
overcame the death of clover rhizobia.   Kevin moved to the University of
Tasmania in late 1963, where he employed colloid science techniques to
help understand the interactions between colloidal clays and rhizobia and the possible mechanism of the protection of the bacteria by adsorbed clay. In addition, he studied the deposition of manganese by budding bacteria in hydroelectric pipelines.    These studies ultimately led to the application of colloidal chemistry to the mechanism of the adsorption of marine bacteria to surfaces and the eventual development of biofilms.   In 1974, Kevin was appointed Professor of Microbiology at the University of New South Wales (UNSW).   He wrote the book Interfaces in Microbial Ecology, edited 7 volumes of Advances in Microbial Ecology and edited several other books on bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation.   He retired from UNSW in January 1992.   Kevin is a Fellow and Honorary Member of the Australian Society for Microbiology, a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and an Honorary Member of the American Society for Microbiology.

Sunday, August 17, 2008, 16:30

The Deep Biosphere

Bo Barker Jørgensen
Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Germany
Center for Geomicrobiology, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Aarhus, Denmark

Bo Barker Jørgensen has a joint position at the new Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany and at University of Aarhus (AU), Denmark. He obtained a Ph.D. degree at AU in 1977 and a D.Sc. degree in 1979. Bo worked and taught at the AU for 14 years. Still at the AU, he was granted a 5-year Research Professorship of the Danish Natural Science Research Council (1987-92). During this professorship, he was invited by the German Max Planck Society to become the founding director of a new Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen. Together with his research group of ten young people from Aarhus, Bo started 1992 in Bremen where they established the Department of Biogeochemistry. Today the institute has three departments and 200 coworkers and graduate students in total. In 1993 Bo was hired as a full professor in the Geology Department at the University of Bremen and as an adjunct professor in the Biology Department of the University of Aarhus. In cooperation with the Max Planck Society and the Danish National Research Foundation he established in October 2007 a Center for Geomicrobiology which he will be heading at the University of Aarhus. During the past 12 years Bo has taught university courses for both geology and biology students. He has planned, organized and coordinated national and international research programs (incl. EU projects), symposia and workshops and have been the chief scientist of a number of oceanic cruises with large research vessels, including the German RV METEOR and the ODP drill-ship, JOIDES Resolution. HIs main research interests are: marine biogeochemistry and microbial ecology; methane fluxes and anaerobic methane oxidation in the sea bed; deep sub-seafloor biosphere; sulfide oxidation and sulfur bacteria; upwelling and oxygen minimum zones; Arctic microbiology.

Monday, August 18, 2008, 14:30

The “Rare Biosphere” is Everywhere!

Mitchell Sogin
Senior Scientist and Director of the Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution, Marine Biological Laboratory, USA

Mitchell L. Sogin received his B.S. in Chemistry and Microbiology from the University of Illinois in 1967 and a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Molecular Biology in 1972. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Jewish Center inDenver, Colorado, where he subsequently joined the faculty as a Senior Staff Scientist. Dr. Sogin was also an Associate Professor in the Microbiology Department of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and a Miller Professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He moved to the Marine Biological Laboratory in 1989 after establishing the summer Workshop in Molecular Evolution. He founded the Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution in 1996.  Over its short history, The Bay Paul Center has become a focal point for collaborative research between molecular biologists, biochemists, parasitologists, ecologists, and other colleagues from the MBL’s summer and resident communities, and from around the world.

Dr. Sogin’s research has made many important contributions towards understanding the evolutionary history of protists. His current research employs massively parallel sequencing technology to explore the diversity and relative abundance of different kinds of microorganisms in marine and terrestrial environments as well as the microbiomes of mammalian organisms. Dr. Sogin has shown that microbial diversity in the oceans is orders of magnitude greater than previously reported. Low abundance organisms account for most of the observed phylogenetic diversity. This “rare biosphere” is very ancient and may represent a nearly inexhaustible source of genomic innovation
  
Dr. Sogin is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Microbiology. He has served on the National Research Council’s Space Studies Board and is a member of the American Society of Microbiology, the Society of Protozoologists, the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution, and the American Society for Cell Biology. He serves on the editorial boards of Environmental Microbiology and Protist.

Monday, August 18, 2008, 17:30

Bird’s Eye View: Integrating Ecological Theory into Microbial Ecology

Peter Steinberg
Centre for Marine Bio-Innovation
University of New South Wales, Australia

Peter Steinberg is a professor in the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, and joint Director of the Centre for Marine Bio-Innovation, at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.  He is an internationally recognised expert in marine chemical ecology with over 100 international publications. He has a particular interest in interactions at surfaces and prokaryote/ eukaryote interactions. Peter is also one of the founders and now Chief Executive Officer of Biosignal Ltd. and a co-inventor of its antibiofilm core technology.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008, 14.30

Interactions and the evolution of microbial communities

Paul Rainey
New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study, Massey University, New Zealand

Paul Rainey is a Professor of evolutionary genetics at the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study and Institute for Molecular Bioscences at Massey University Auckland.  He is also visiting Professor at Stanford University (where he is co-director of the Hopkins Microbial Diversity Programme), Senior Adjunct Researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute for Aquatic Science & Technology, Principle Investigator at the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology & Evolution, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of NZ. During his youth he became interested in many things biological: plants, fungi, bacteria; their interactions, their genetics, but mostly, their evolution.  He completed his PhD at the University of Canterbury and in 1989, took up a postdoctoral research fellowship at Cambridge University.  In 1991 he moved to a government-funded research institute in Oxford. In 1994 he was awarded a BBSRC Advanced Research Fellowship, which he took to the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Oxford.  In 1996 he was appointed to a faculty position at Oxford, a fellowship at St. Cross College, and a stipendiary lectureship at Wadham. With much dedication, he also ran his College's wine cellar.  In 2003, he returned to New Zealand as Chair of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Auckland, but retained a fractional position at Oxford (until the end of 2005).  In 2007 he moved his Lab to Massey University's Albany campus.  His research is largely empirical (making frequent use of experimental microbial populations) and sits broadly in the field of evolutionary and ecological genetics. Evolutionary transitions and the origins of multicellularity are a growing fascination.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008, 19:00

Biofilms in Lab and Nature: A Molecular Geneticist's Trek to Microbial Ecology

Roberto Kolter
Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Harvard Medical School, USA

Roberto Kolter is a Professor in the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Department at Harvard Medical School and Co-Director of Harvard’s Microbial Sciences Initiative.  He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the President-Elect of the American Society for Microbiology.  Kolter has been an influential microbiologist for a period that spans four decades.  As a graduate student in the 1970’s, his studies on the regulation of plasmid replication provided some of the first molecular evidence supporting the replicon hypothesis.  Kolter established his laboratory at Harvard Medical School in 1983 and since then, has made important contributions in diverse areas of microbiology.  His work on peptide antibiotic synthesis and secretion provided some of the earliest knowledge on “ABC” exporters.  Kolter was among the first to develop genetic approaches to investigate bacterial starvation physiology and pioneered the use stationary phase cultures as model systems in experimental evolution.  Since the mid-1990s, Kolter has led the way in applying molecular genetic approaches to the study of biofilms.  Presently, he continues to demonstrate his innovation and creativity in his studies that focus on the chemical biology of interspecies interactions.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008, 19:45

Into the Natural Microbial World

Norman Pace (Tiedje Awardee)
Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado-Boulder, USA

Prof. Norman Pace currently is Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder.  Pace works in two scientific arenas.  On one hand he is a molecular biologist, and noteworthy recent efforts have included elucidation of the crystal structure and catalytic mechanism of the RNA moiety of ribonuclease P, a ribozyme.  On the other hand, Pace is a microbial ecologist.  His laboratory has long been engaged in the development of molecular tools for culture-independent study of natural microbial ecosystems.  Studies over two decades have expanded substantially the known diversity of microbial life in the environment.  Pace is a member of the National Academy of Sciences; and he is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Microbiology, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.  He received the 1996 Procter and Gamble Award in Applied and Environmental Microbiology and the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society for Microbiology; and the 2001 Selman A. Waksman Award for Distinguished Contributions in Microbiology from the National Academy of Sciences.  Pace also is an expert in cave exploration.  He received the Lewis Bicking Award from the National Speleological Society for his contributions to American caving.

Thursday, August 21, 2008, 14:30

Life on a Leaf

Steven Lindow
Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California, USA

Steven Lindow is a Professor of plant pathology at the University of California, Berkley, USA. He has quite a decorated career and works with many societies and agencies. The Lindow research group, affectionately known as the ICE Lab, studies a number of different aspects of epiphytic bacteria that live on the surface of healthy plants. Their work has emphasized the study of bacteria that are active in ice nucleation (Ice+), thereby causing frost damage to plants, as well as plant pathogenic bacteria that inhabit plant surfaces prior to infection. The research emphasizes both molecular genetic and ecological approaches to the study of the interaction of epiphytic bacteria with plants and with each other with the goal to better understand the adaptations that these bacteria have evolved to exploit this unique habitat. Prof Lindow is also very active in the editorial realm holding a position on the Editorial boards of 9 journals, including The ISME Journal. He has won many honors.  He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Phytopathology society, American Academy of Microbiology, and the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, and has been awarded many prizes including the Procter and Gamble Award in Applied and Environmental Microbiology from the American Society for Microbiology. 

Friday, August 22, 2008, 15:00

The Symbiont Role in Host Evolution - Past and Present

Nancy Moran
Regents' Professor Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Joint Professor, Department of Entomology, The University of Arizona, USA

Nancy A. Moran is Regents' Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona. She once worked on insect evolution, including social behavior and modes of reproduction in insects. But since 1990, her main focus has been the exploration of bacterial symbiosis, including functional, evolutionary and genetic aspects. Her work spans evolutionary biology, entomology, microbiology, and genetics. Symbionts she has discovered include some of the most extreme instances of genome evolution in cellular organisms, exhibiting highly derived, tiny genomes. Her work has shown that symbionts play a central role in host biology, affecting dietary choices, defense against enemies and persistence under stressful conditions. Moran is a member of the National Academy of Sciences; and she is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Microbiology, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She is past president of the Society for the Study of Evolution.

Invited Oral Sessions 

Monday August 18, 2008, 8.30-10.30am

Bacterial Speciation and Microbial Ecology
Convenors: Dave Ward and R. Thane Papke

• Nine Models of Bacterial Diversification
  Frederick M. Cohan, Department of Biology, Wesleyan University, USA
• Recombination decouples species concepts from ecological niche
  R. Thane Papke, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Connecticut, USA
• High-Resolution, Cultivation-Independent, Single-Locus and Multi-Locus Population Genetics Analysis of Synechococcus Species in a Yellowstone Hot Spring Microbial Mat: Evidence for Adaptive Radiation
  Dave Ward, Montana State University, USA
• Fuzzy niches and fuzzy species
  William P. Hanage, Division of Epidemiology, Public Health and Primary Care, Imperial College London, UK

Biodegradation: Appetite for the Unusual
Convenors: Ralf Rabus and Ian Head

• Themes and variations in the methanogenic degradation of petroleum hydrocarbons
  Ian Head, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
• Sequence and Expression Analysis of Alkane and Alkene Catabolic Genes in Mycobacterium Strain NBB4, A Versatile Hydrocarbon Degrader
  Nick Coleman, Darlington, Australia
• Proteogenomic Insights Into Anaerobic Degradation of Aromatic Compounds and Hydrocarbons
• Ralf Rabus, Institut für Chemie und Biologie des Meeres (ICBM), Carl von Ossietzky
  Universität Oldenburg, Germany
• Interspecies interactions for anaerobic biodegradation
  Kazuya Watanabe, The University of Tokyo, Japan

The Biofilm Mode of Life
Convenors: Tom Battin and Staffan Kjelleberg

• The Role of Bacterial Biofilms in Chronic Human Disease: An Ecological Perspective
  Bill Costerton, University of Southern California, USA
• Biofilm differentiation and dispersal
  Staffan Kjelleberg, University of New South Wales, Australia
• Biofilm Ecology: Out of the zoo into nature
  Tom Battin, University of Vienna, Austria
• New Aspects of Extracellular Polymeric Substances of Environmental Bacteria
  Ulrich Szewzyk, Technical University of Berlin, Germany

Viral Ecology
Convenors: Forest Rohwer and Curtis Suttle

• Virus Tales from the High Seas and Low Lakes: Inferring Host Species from Phylogenetic Analysis of Viral Genotypes
  Curtis Suttle, University of British Columbia, Canada
• Challenges in phytoplankton viral ecology
  Corina Brussaard, Royal Netherlands Institute of Sea Research, The Netherlands
• Wild and weird haloviruses of Archaea from Australian salt lakes
  Mike Dyall-Smith, University of Melbourne, Australia
• The Global Virome
  Forest Rohwer, San Diego State University, USA

The Living Soil
Convenors: Margaret Roper and Hans van Veen

• Fungal-bacterial interactions as drivers of microbial community structure in soil
  Hans van Veen, NIOO-KNAW, The Netherlands
• Application of Endophytic Actinobacteria to Improve Crop Productivity
  Margaret Roper, CSIRO, Plant Industry, Australia
• Reciprocal interactions between plants and fluorescent pseudomonads in relation with iron
  in the rhizosphere
  Philippe Lemanceau, INRA-CMSE, Laboratoire de Recherches sur la Flore Pathogene du Sol,
  Dijon, France
• Shedding light on in situ rhizosphere interactions
  Ken Killham, Soil Science, University of Aberdeen, UK

The Animal Microbiome
Convenors: Yasuo Kobayashi and Mark Morrison

• Symbioses of Flagellates and Bacteria in Termite Guts and their Roles for Efficient Digestion Moriya Ohkuma, Environmental Molecular Biology Laboratory, Japan
• The Microbiome of the developing Tammar Wallaby, Macropus Eugenii
   Nick Jacques, Westmead Millennium Institute and Westmead Centre for Oral Health, Australia
• Exploration of plant-associated rumen bacteria: their phylogeny, ecology and functions
  Yasuo Kobayashi, Graduate School of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, Japan
• Metagenomics research of the foregut microbiome of Australian native herbivores
  Mark Morrison, CSIRO, Australia/The Ohio State University, USA

Tuesday, August 19, 2008, 8:30-10:30am

Modelling and Theory in Microbial Ecology
Convenors: Tom McMeekin and Tom Curtis

• The Lottery of Microbial Community Assembly
  Bill Sloan,University of Glasgow, UK
• Modelling microbial ecology in foods: balancing empiricism and mechanism
  Tom Ross,University of Tasmania, Australia
• Evolution of cooperation and communication in spatially complex systems
  Jan-Ulrich Kreft,University of Birmingham, UK
• Modelling Stress Responses from Transcriptomic Data
  John Bowman, Hobart, Australia

Biogeochemical and Elemental Cycles
Convenors: Marc Strous and Derek Lovely

• Denitrification revisited - facts and fiction in biological N2 production
  Marc Strous,Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
• Exploring methanotrophy in acidic northern wetlands: the never ending story
  Svetlana Dedysh,Institute of Microbiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
• Life on the Rocks in the Deep-Sea: The Basalt Biome
  Katrina Edwards,Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, USA
• Molecular strategies for diagnosing the in situ metabolic status of dissimilatory metal
  reducers in subsurface environments
  Derek Lovley,Dept. of Microbiology, University of Massachusetts, USA

Novel Technologies and Methods – Metagenomics
Convenors: Jim Tiedje and Phil Hugenholtz

• Resolving Genetic Gradients Using Fine-Scale Metagenomics
  Phil Hugenholtz, Dept of Energy, Joint Genome Institute, USA
• Metatranscriptomic  profiling of microbial assemblages in the ocean
  Gene Tyson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
• From Single Filaments to Populations- Genomics of Uncultured, Sulfur Cycling Microbes in Marine Sediments
  Marc Mussmann, University of Vienna, Austria
• Investigating Marine Cyanobacterial Diversity through a Targeted Metagenomics Approach
  Ian Paulsen, Macquarie University, Australia

Microbial Communities in the Oceans
Convenors: Rudi Amann and Jed Fuhrman

• Inferring marine microbial system function from temporal and spatial patterns
  Jed Fuhrman, University of Southern California, USA
• Microbial Processes at Station Aloha
  David Karl, University of Hawaii, USA
• Microbial communities in and below the dark ocean: their functional diversity and activity
  Ken Takai, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Japan
• Flavobacteria: news on "old" marine bacteria
  Rudi Amann, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Germany

The Human Microbiome
Convenors: David Relman and Liping Zhao

• Integration of Metabonomics and Metagenomics for understanding human organismal level complexity in disease and health
  Liping Zhao, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
• Patterns of diversity in the human microbiota
  David Relman, Stanford University, USA
• Towards signatures of Crohn's disease in the human intestinal microbiome
   Joel Dore, INRA Centre of Jouy-en-Josas, France
• Evolution of the Human Microbiome
  Rob Knight, University of Colorado, United States of America

Thursday, August 21, 2008, 8:30-10:30am

Growing the Recalcitrant
Convenors: Yoichi Kamagata and Jang-Cheon Cho

• Building a Better Petri Dish - microbial growth chips microengineered onto porous aluminium oxide
  Colin Ingham, Department of Medical Microbiology and Infection Control, Hospital Jeroen Bosch, The Netherlands
• Culturing organisms based on syntrophy
  Yoichi Kamagata, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan
• Culturing Soil Bacteria from Under-Represented Phylogenetic Groups
  Peter Janssen, Agresearch, New Zealand
• Culturing Oligotrophic Bacteria from Diverse Marine Environments using a Dilution-to-Extinction Method
  Jang-Cheon Cho, Inha University, Korea

Environmental Biotechnology
Convenors: Wen-Tso Liu and Korneel Rabaey

• Metagenomics Insights into a Terephthalate-Degrading Methanogenic Hybrid Reactor
  Wen-Tso Liu, National University of Singapore, Singapore
• Bio-electrochemical systems: microbial populations generating electrical current and beyond
  Korneel Rabaey, The University of Queensland, Australia
• Ecosystem engineering for bioplastic production
  Mark van Loosdrecht, Delft Technical University, The Netherlands
• Ecology-based Biotechnology: Cycles, Networks, and Products for the Coming Green Economy
  Craig Criddle,Stanford University, USA

Novel Technologies and Methods - Functional Community Analysis
Convenors: Robert Hettich and Mary Lidstrom

• Dissection of composition and function of the human gut microbiota using multiphasic
  molecular approaches
  Janet Jansson, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden
• MS-Based Proteogenomics Measurements Reveal Insight into the Activities and Functions of Natural Microbial Communities
  Robert Hettich, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA
• Imaging Metabolic Interactions in Microbial Communities
  Alfred Spormann, Stanford University, United States of America
• Coupling Function to Phylogeny Via Single-cell Phenotyping
  Mary Lidstrom, University of Washington, USA

Scratch my back: Microbial Symbionts
Convenors: Nicole Dubilier and Mike Taylor

• Ancient Partners: Marine Sponges and their Microbial Symbionts
  Mike Taylor, University of Auckland, New Zealand
• The Double Life of Aeromonas veronii: Pathogen of Mammals and Symbiont of Leeches
  Joerg Graf, University of Connecticut, Molecular & Cell Biology, USA
• Bacterial symbionts of termite gut flagellates: a tripartite symbiosis
  Andreas Brune, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Germany
• Multiple co-occurring symbionts of marine invertebrates: who's scratching whom?
  Nicole Dubilier, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Germany

Global Climate Change
Convenors: Paul Falkowski and Joan Rose

• Microbiological Risks, Flooding and Waterborne Disease associated with Climate Change
  Joan Rose, Michigan State University, USA
• Electrons, oxygen, and biogeochemical feedbacks in climates past, present and future
  Paul Falkowski, Rutgers University, USA
• Investigation of Ocean Acidification Impact on Marine Microbes using Metagenomic and Metatranscriptomic Approaches
  Jack Gilbert, Plymouth, United Kingdom
• Magnetotactic Microbes and the Transformation of the Iron Cycle under Severe Global Warming in the Initial Eocene
  Bob Kopp, Princeton University, USA

New Vistas in Microbial Extremes
Convenors: Rick Cavicchioli and Andreas Weber

• Resolving Environmental Drivers of Microbial Biodiversity in Antarctic Dry Valleys: The Coldest, Driest Place on Earth
  S.C. Cary, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
• Loving the cold: the life and times of the Antarctic archaeon, Methanococcoides burtonii
  Rick Cavicchioli, University of New South Wales, Australia
• The Red Hot Genome Project - Genome Sequence of the Thermo-Acidophilic Red Microalga Galdieria Sulphuraria
  Andreas Weber, Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf, Germany
• Extremely sweet: Protein glycosylation in Archaea
  Jerry Eichler, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Friday, August 22, 2008, 8:30-10:30am

Single Cell Microbiology
Convenors: Martin Keller and Michael Wagner

• Subcellular Chemical Imaging and Localization by NanoSims
  P. Weber, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA
• Raman-FISH for Analysing Who Eats What Where and When
  Michael Wagner, University of Vienna, Austria
• Integrated Microfluidics, Optical Tweezers, And Fish Come Together To Enable High-Throughput, High-Sensitivity, And Low-Background Single-Cell Whole-Genome Sequencing
  Paul Blainey, Stanford University, USA
• Single Cell Screening and Genomics: The Road Ahead
  Martin Keller, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA

Geomicrobiology and Paleobiology
Convenors: Peter Franzmann and Jim Fredrickson

• Microbial electron acceptor limitation: bacterial responses and geobiological impacts
  Ken Nealson, University of Southern California, USA
• Extracellular Electron Transfer Proteins: Implications for Geomicrobial Processes
  Jim Fredrickson, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA
• Where to with copper bioleaching?
  Peter Franzmann, CSIRO, Land and Water, Australia
• Molecular Fossils and the Reconstruction of Billion-Years-Old Microbial Ecosystems
  Jochen Brocks, The Australian National University, Australia

Novel Technologies and Methods - Interpreting the Data
Convenors: Karla Heidelberg and David Karl

• Genomic DNA Sequencing from Single Bacterial Cells using the Multiple Displacement Amplification (MDA) Reaction
  Roger Lasken, J. Craig Venter Institute, USA
• From metagenomics to functional studies of microbial communities
  Jillian Banfield, University of California, USA
• Metagenomic Analysis of Planktonic Microbial Populations in the Gulf of Maine
  John Heidelberg, University of Southern California, USA
• Efficient Metagenomics Data Processing: Pitfalls and Solutions
  Nikos Kyrpides, Dept of Energy, Joint Genome Institute, USA

Coral Microbial Ecology
Convenors: David Bourne and Kim Ritchie

• The Black Band Disease Microbial Consortium – Physiological Groups and Toxin Producers
  Laurie L. Richardson, Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, Miami USA
• Beneficial coral microbes:  interactions with corals and dinoflagellates
  Kim Ritchie, Mote Marine Laboratory, Florida USA
• The Microbial Ecology of Pseudopterogorgia Americana
  Garriet W. Smith, Department of Biology and Geology, University of South Carolina Aiken, USA
• Corals and their associated microbiota - Implications for Health, Bleaching and Disease
  David Bourne, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Australia

The Water Cycle
Convenors: Nick Ashbolt and Linda Blackall

• From Source to Tap, Understanding the Ecology of Environmental Pathogens for Sustainable Urban Water Use
  Nicholas Ashbolt, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, USA
• Treatment of wastewater for beneficial reuse
  Linda L. Blackall, The University of Queensland, Australia
• The Genomics and Molecular Regulation Cyanobacterial Toxicity
  Brett Neilan, University of New South Wales, Australia
• Microbial communities in lakes - sentinels of human impacts on freshwater
  Trina McMahon, University of Madison-Wisconsin, USA

Microbial communication
Convenors: Leo Eberl and Lian-Hui Zhang

• Pathogen-Host Communication in Activation of a Key Virulence Regulon
  Lian-Hui Zhang, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Singapore
• Cell-to-Cell Communication Controls Biocontrol Activites and Pathogenicity in Members of the Genus Burkholderia
  Leo Eberl, University of Zurich, Switzerland
• How pseudomonads use small RNAs in communication and adaptation
  Dieter Haas, Department of Fundamental Microbiology, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
• Shouts and whispers by the seashore: acylhomoserine lactone signaling by sponge-associated bacteria
  Clay Fuqua, Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA