The 3rd Bacterial Cell Biology Conference was held at the Meliá Beach Hotel and Resort in Nassau, Bahamas, from the 26th – 29th Feb 2020. There were 57 attendees (23 female/34 male) and the organisers were Prof Christine Jacobs-Wagner from Stanford University and Prof Jeff Errington from Newcastle University in the UK. The programme included 19 longer (30 min) presentations from invited speakers and 11 short talks (15 min) selected from submitted abstracts. Attendees came from all around the world including 11 different countries and 4 continents. The talks covered all of the major functions of bacterial cells, especially the cell cycle and cell morphogenesis, and touched on a range of interesting and unusual organisms, as well as the “usual suspects” – model organisms E. coli, B. subtilis and Caulobacter. Virtually all of the talks were followed by intense and interesting Q&A discussions. Delegates also commented that it was really unusual to go to a meeting in which almost all of the talks were of real interest.  

The poster sessions were very effective and the 1-minute poster talks provided a great way for presenters to showcase their work and encourage delegates to go to their posters. An innovation (for us) was the idea of having an electronic voting system for best posters, in which everyone at the meeting was encouraged to vote. The three poster prizes of $250 each went to the following people. Jonathan Chapman, Newcastle University, “Uncovering the specialised metabolites behind mycetoma”. Laura Nolan, Imperial College London, “Using insider information to identify novel antibacterial targets”. Jan Falguera, University of Toronto, “The effect of DNA damage on cell division in the filamentous bacterium Streptomyces”.

The conference venue was great. Although a long haul flight from Europe, the warm and sunny Bahamian weather was very much appreciated, and by timing the conference in the low season, and using an all inclusive resort, the Fusion staff were able to solve many of the conference organization issues such as timing of lunches, dinners and refreshment breaks. A couple of hours during the afternoons were kept free for time at leisure and the chance to enjoy the sea and sand.

Overall, this was a very successful meeting. Its relatively small and intimate scale enabled all of the junior delegates to meet and interact with all of the senior scientists in the field. The breadth of the topics and quality of the speakers (almost all of the top international scientists we approached agreed to speak) provided delegates with an up to date view across the field of bacterial cell biology. We hope to be able to hold the 4th meeting of the series in 2 or 3 years’ time.

We would like to thank the media partners and sponsors for their generous support. Most of all, we would like to thank the Fusion organization, especially Jack Peters, for their extremely helpful and professional handling of all aspects of the meeting. The arrangements for food, accommodation and the conference rooms were all outstanding.

*Written by conference chairs Jeff Errington and Christine Jacobs-Wagner

Student Offer

Take advantage of this fantastic opportunity for students! Register an academic at the earlybird rate and bring a student for only $850. Unfortunately, Postdocs are not eligible for this offer. Both registration packages include; accommodation for the 26, 27, 28 February 2020 (on a shared basis for students) and a 24hour all-inclusive food and beverage package for the conference period. Once registered, please contact Jack Peters to obtain a special registration link for your student.
 

This meeting is a continuation of the Zing Conferences Bacterial Cell Biology series. In the last two decades there has been an explosion of interest in fundamental aspects of bacterial structure and function, based on advances in fluorescence and cryo-EM imaging. In the last few years, quantitative and automated methods have brought about radical changes in the breadth and depth of studies, leading to important mechanistic discoveries. Meanwhile, genome sequencing and genetic methods such as CRISPR-Cas9 and Tn-Seq have greatly expanded the range of organisms that can be studied incisively, enabling comparative studies of processes such as growth, morphogenesis and division, across diverse bacterial phyla. The conference will bring together presentations illustrating the application of advanced cell and molecular biology methods to a wide range of basic functions in bacterial cells. Advances in understanding of the fundamentals of bacterial structure and function also create opportunities for the development of novel approaches to kill or modulate the growth and behaviour of bacterial cells.

Specific sessions are likely to cover the following areas.

• Cell morphogenesis
• Cell division
• Chromosome replication and segregation
• Cell biology of transcription and translation
• Advances in imaging
• Diversity in bacterial structure and function
• Bacterial communities and signalling
• Bacterial chemical biology

Confirmed Invited Speakers

Thomas Bernhardt (Harvard University)
REGULATION OF CELL WALL REMODELING AT THE CELL DIVISION SITE
Melanie Blokesch (EPFL, Lausanne)
MOLECULAR MECHANISMS AT PLAY IN VIBRIO CHOLERAE’S ENVIRONMENTAL LIFESTYLE
Yves Brun (Université de Montréal)
A BIFUNCTIONAL ATPASE DRIVES TAD PILUS EXTENSION AND RETRACTION
Cees Dekker (Delft University of Technology)
BIOPHYSICS STUDIES ON THE SHAPING OF CHROMOSOMES
Ethan Garner (Harvard University)
SERINE KINASES, RESPONDING TO LIPID II, CONTROL THE RATE OF CELL GROWTH BY MODULATING ROD COMPLEX ACTIVITY
Stephan Gruber (University of Lausanne)
HOW DOES ParB CTPase STEER CHROMOSOME SEGREGATION?
Grant Jensen (Caltech)
UPDATES ON WHAT WE’VE LEARNED SO FAR ABOUT BACTERIAL CELL BIOLOGY FROM ELECTRON CRYOTOMOGRAPHY
Petra Levin (Washington University in St. Louis)
SHAPING THE CELL FROM THE OUTSIDE IN
Jun Liu (Yale School of Medicine)
VISUALIZING BACTERIAL NANOMACHINES AT HIGH RESOLUTION
Joe Lutkenhaus (University of Kansas Medical Center)
REGULATION OF SEPTAL PG SYNTHESIS
Tam Mignot (CNRS, Paris)
A MULTISCALE ANALYSIS OF BACTERIAL PREDATION
Heath Murray (Newcastle University)
IDENTIFICATION OF A BASAL SYSTEM FOR BACTERIAL CHROMOSOME ORIGIN UNWINDING
Johan Paulsson (Harvard Medical School)
GENERAL PRINCIPLES FOR TIMING AND OSCILLATIONS IN STOCHASTIC REACTION SYSTEMS
Mariana Pinho (ITQB, Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
REASSESSMENT OF THE DISTINCTIVE GEOMETRY OF STAPHYLOCOCCUS AUREUS CELL DIVISION
Liz Sockett (Nottingham University)
PREDATORY CELL BIOLOGY OF BDELLOVIBRIO
Lotte Sogaard-Andersen (Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology)
REGULATION OF DYNAMIC CELL POLARITY IN MYXOCOCCUS XANTHUS BY SPATIAL CONTROL OF THE SMALL GTPase MglA
Waldemar Vollmer (Newcastle University)
PEPTIDOGLYCAN SYNTHESIS AND REMODELLING
Suzanne Walker (Harvard Medical School)
STAPHYLOCOCCUS AUREUS CELL SIZE IS REGULATED BY CELL WALL HYDROLASE COMPLEXES
Jie Xiao (Johns Hopkins University)
REGULATION AND ORGANIZATION OF BACTERIAL SEPTAL CELL WALL SYNTHESIS

Target Audience

The conference should attract all of the major players in the bacterial cell biology field, of which there are probably 50 or so significant groups world wide. It will also attract many microbiologists with a general interest in microbial cell function who would badge themselves as molecular biologists or microbial biochemists.

The talks will cover a wide range of topics and PhDs, post-docs and group leaders will all benefit by being brought up to date with developments across the field. 

Educational Need

Bacterial cell biology underpins important applied research areas such as infectious disease, antimicrobial discovery and development, and synthetic biology, but it is not really taught as a discipline in its own right, now that microbiology degree courses have all but disappeared. The modern discipline, which has emerged in the last 20 or so years, covers a wide range of technical methods and can be highly quantitative, as well as covering a diversity of organisms and mechanistic problems. The conference presentations will collectively provide a comprehensive grounding in all major facets of the field, bringing new comers to field, at all levels (pre- and post-doctoral, and group leaders switching fields), up to speed.