Microbial Control of Homeostasis in Extreme, Hostile, and Unpredictable Environments

Rapid and robust adaptive responses are essential for life in harsh environments. In bacteria, the global regulatory circuits that coordinate metabolic flux with growth, cell envelope composition, and cell cycle progression are essential to ensure the efficient partitioning of limited resources, maximize proliferative potential, and preserve viability in response to frequently changing conditions. These critical regulatory networks are the bacterial equivalent of an Achilles' heel, as defects in these systems render bacteria unable to adapt to changes in temperature, nutrient availability, osmotic and oxidative stress, and challenges presented by antibiotics, other microbes, and host immune systems.

The GRC Microbial Stress Response meeting brings together a diverse group of investigators to explore how bacteria respond to abiotic and host-associated stress. Emphasis will be placed on new approaches to understanding interactions between microbes and the environment, particularly modern imaging, genetic, metagenomic, and computational strategies for understanding bacterial physiology and community structures under conditions of stress and competition. Attendees are encouraged to present posters of their most exciting research. Approximately 20% of oral presentations will be selected from the submitted abstracts with an emphasis on those by new investigators, postdoctoral scientists and graduate students.