2016 Molecular Basis of Microbial One-Carbon Metabolism GRC/GRS

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This award will support graduate student and/or postdoctoral participation in the 2016 Gordon Research Conference on the Molecular Basis of Microbial One-Carbon Metabolism (GRC-C1). The main goal of the conference is to present and discuss new, fundamental research findings related to the activities of microorganisms that grow on one-carbon compounds such as methane, carbon mono- and dioxide, and methanol. The GRC-C1 embraces the philosophy that early dissemination of pioneering basic research facilitates translation of fundamental knowledge into practical application. Advances in understanding the metabolic and evolutionary diversity of microbial life and the complex roles that microorganisms play on Earth will lead to applications in biotechnology, the food industry, agriculture, and medicine by conference participants from industry, colleges and universities, research foundations, and government laboratories. The GRC-C1 program will cover considerable scientific breadth. Overarching themes will include discovering new organisms and investigating microbiomes from a wide variety of environments, elucidating the connection between gut microbiota and human health, decoding genomes, unraveling metabolic pathways, and developing new bio-inspired networks for new research and application. It will cover all aspects of anaerobic and aerobic microbial C1 metabolism, from molecules to ecosystems, and aim to provide complementary cross-disciplinary perspectives from microbiology, biochemistry, structural biology, biogeochemistry, ecology, evolution, and synthetic biology. Topics will cover the wide-ranging metabolic diversity of autotrophic microbes, methanogens, acetogens, methylotrophs and methanotrophs. Innovative applications of C1 metabolism for production of biofuels and high added value chemicals, as well as for remediation of environmental contamination, will be presented. The GRC-C1 meeting will contribute to critical understanding of microbial metabolic processes crucial for key ecosystem services and the global functioning of our planet, thereby generating large and crucial societal impacts. The conference will attract a broad array of people including: biochemists, microbial and molecular geneticists, bioinformaticists, virologists, computational biologists, mathematical modelers, population biologists, evolutionists, and molecular, medical and environmental microbiologists. NSF support will enable this cadre of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to meet and learn from early career and senior scientists who are the leaders in this field.