2012 CSHL Bacteria & Phages Conference

描述（由申请人提供）：细菌和噬菌体分子遗传学会议，传统上在冷泉港举行，现在隔年在威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校和冷泉港实验室举行，是展示原核分子遗传学新成果的中心论坛。大约有200-400名代表来自世界各地的实验室的参与者参加，大多数人会做简短的演讲或海报。它的广度使它成为这个科学专业化时代信息交流的重要焦点。涵盖的主题包括细菌复制、重组、修复、转座、转录、基因表达控制、翻译、信号传导、热休克、蛋白质折叠和分泌、应激反应、细胞发育和分裂以及发病机制的基础工作。近年来，基因组学和宏基因组学、社会微生物学、分子生态学、结构生物学和系统分析等新兴领域得到了发展。对于许多研究生和博士后来说，这是他们第一次有机会在大型国际会议上发言。由于具有高度互动性，会议为这些年轻科学家提供了一个与他们从文献中认识的资深科学家见面和交谈的重要机会。为了响应参加会议的大量学生和所涵盖的主题的多样性，我们邀请了知名和杰出的科学家主持每届会议。这加强了会议，因为每个主席都作了简短的介绍，总结了将要涉及的领域的一些关键方面，并为会谈将要解决的主要问题提供了一个概念性框架。作为一个额外的好处，在会议公告中宣传明智选择的主席和会议主题，鼓励提交令人兴奋的新领域的摘要，并刺激更多的选民参加会议。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Molecular Genetics of Bacteria and Phages Conference, traditionally held at Cold Spring Harbor and now being held in alternate years at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, is a central forum for the presentation of new results in prokaryotic molecular genetics. On the order of 200-400 participants attend, representing laboratories throughout the world, and most present either short talks or posters. Its breadth makes it an important focus for the exchange of information in this era of scientific specialization. Topics covered include fundamental work on bacterial replication, recombination, repair, transposition, transcription, control of gene expression, translation, signaling, heat shock, protein folding and secretion, stress response, cell development and division, and pathogenesis. In recent years, efforts have been made to include emerging areas such as genomics and metagenomics, sociomicrobiology, molecular ecology, structural biology and systems analysis. For many graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, this is the first large, international meeting at which they have an opportunity to speak. Due to is highly interactive nature, the meeting provides an important opportunity for these young scientists to meet and talk to the senior scientists they know from the literature. In response to the large numbers of students who attend the meeting and the diversity of topics covered, established and distinguished scientists are invited to chair each session. This strengthens the meeting because each chairperson gives a short introduction in which he or she summarizes some of the key facets of the field to be covered and provides a conceptual framework for the major questions that the talks will address. As an additional benefit, publicizing the judiciously chosen chairpeople and session topics in announcements of the meeting encourages the submission of abstracts in exciting new areas and stimulates attendance by a larger constituency. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The unicellular microorganisms known as bacteria can be found in almost all ecosystems on the planet, from extreme environments to the human gut. Humans have evolved robust immunity to live alongside many bacteria, and indeed to use bacteria in processes from cheese-making to biotechnology, but under adverse conditions, bacteria are responsible for many important infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera or syphilis. Much as plants and animals have viruses, so bacteria can be infected by bacteriophages that alter their metabolism and biochemistry. Phages have been used by scientists for many decades as exquisite genetic tools to probe many fundamental aspects of the molecular machinery at work in bacteria. This work has helped us to understand how bacteria control their life cycle, how cells reproduce and divide, and how they survive in and sense their environment. Research is now shifting from how individual bacterial cells function to how colonies of microorganisms collaborate and survive, and how these colonies adapt to changes in their environment, in niches as varied as in the soil, under the sea, or in an animal or human host. This international conference will provide a forum for scientists working on related topics to share their latest discoveries and will bring together the leading experts in the field.