Join the free mSystems Thinking Series of webinars, where editors come together with some of their favorite speakers on a variety of topics, using an interactive forum to allow the community to both hear the best science and meet speakers in small groups. Presentations are followed by an open forum panel discussion with all speakers and participants. Discussions and Q&A will all be live.
Critical Concepts in Dormancy
Part I: Dormancy in Human Health and the Environment
Dormancy is a temporary and reversible state of low activity that has evolved across the major lineages of life. It is a critical strategy that cells can use to persist in unfavorable conditions and to withstand stress, and it has important consequences for human and environmental health. This webinar will feature 4 experts discussing their discoveries that provide insights into our understanding of dormancy in antimicrobial persistence, human cancer, microbial ecology and evolution and environmental microbiology.Key Learning Objectives:
- Explain some of the biological consequences of dormancy within health and environmental systems.
- Draw connections among the different concepts of dormancy that are applied in research in human health and environmental science.
- Identify 2 or more biological traits of dormancy (e.g., changes in cellular physiology, phenotype, kinetics) and appreciate their diversity and collective universality across systems.
Presenters
- Nathalie Q. Balaban, Professor of Physics, Racah Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
- Joel Brown, Distinguished Professor Emeritus·University of Illinois Chicago.
- Pilar Junier, Professor of Microbiology, University of Neuchâtel.
- Jay Lennon, Professor in the Department of Biology, Indiana University.
Moderator
- Ashley Shade, Director of Research at the Institute of Ecology and the Environment, French National Center for Scientific Research.
Part II: Discriminating States of Microbial Activity | November 7; 9 a.m. EST (9 pm CST China)
Registration for Part II Coming Soon.
Dormancy is a critical strategy microorganisms can use to persist in unfavorable conditions. However, many cells regularly fluctuate in activity intensity from very low (e.g., spores) to very high (e.g., replicating cells). Outside of controlled cultures in the laboratory, it remains technically challenging to discriminate different states of microbial activity. Yet, this discrimination is fundamental to first assessing and then understanding the consequences of dormancy and re-activation within biological systems. This webinar will feature four experts who will discuss the cutting-edge approaches they use to quantify the activity of microbial cells, populations and communities and share their collective insights across a breadth of biological complexity, from cellular to environmental systems.Key Learning Objectives:
- Discuss microbial activity as a continuum.
- Differentiate the advantages and limitations of 3-4 different technologies for discriminating microbial dormant from active states.
- Critique different usages and definitions of microbial dormancy as linked to the methods applied to evaluate activity.
Explore past mSystems Thinking Series webinars on our YouTube playlist! Including the recording of the May 6th event, "Clinical Microbiome: From Technology to Application."