Gordon Research Conference - Microbial Population Biology

When July 21, 2013 (Sun) ~ July 26, 2013 (Fri)

Where Andover, NH USA

Applications for this meeting must be submitted by June 23, 2013. Please apply early, as some meetings become oversubscribed (full) before this deadline.

The concept of a Microbial Population Biology GRC emerged at the 1983 meeting of the Genetics Society in St. Louis. Frustrated by a sense that most evolutionary biologists had little time for microorganisms, Dan Dykhuizen and Barry Hall called an informal session of those interested in the topic: they did so by nailing notices on trees. About 40 people turned up – including Dan Hartl, Monica Riley, and Bruce Levin. The 2 hour meeting was so successful that funding was sought to start a Gordon Conference on the topic. Bruce Levin applied to create the meeting, and the first meeting was held in 1985 with Bruce as Chair and Dan Hartl and Barry Hall as vice chairs.

Over the ensuing two decades the meeting has gone from strength to strength to the point that it is now regularly over-subscribed. It has always been a hot bed of debate and ideas, and it has attracted some of the most influential and broad thinking researchers in biology: many of who come back on a regular basis. The meeting is inordinately collegial and supportive, and has a history of nurturing younger researchers. In fact it is usual for as many as half the invited speakers to be young and emerging researchers.

Looking back over the last 21 years, there is no doubting the significance of the meeting. Some broadly significant issues have been thrashed out (and continue to be thrashed out); including the genetic structure of bacterial populations, the randomness of mutation, the evolution of infectious disease (and antibiotic resistance), the genetics of adaptive evolution, the role of microbes in ecosystem function, the ecology of phage, the evolution of cooperation and no end of genome-informed, genome-enabled and genome-disabled microbiology. This meeting is unique: unique in its interdisciplinary nature, unique in the broad significance of the questions tackled, unique in the passion behind the late night discussions, and unique in the enthusiasm displayed by all that attend. A more stimulating meeting is hard to envisage!

For more information visit: http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?year=2013&program=micrpop