109th General Meeting Of The American Society For Microbiology

Main Category: Biology / Biochemistry
Also Included In: Conferences;  Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses;  Public Health
Article Date: 10 Apr 2009 - 1:00 PDT

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The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) will hold its 109th General Meeting May 17-21, 2009 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The meeting will feature approximately 3,000 individual scientific presentations spanning the breadth of microbiology and has an expected attendance of 10,000.

Microbiologists study living organisms and infectious agents, and their work is critical to human and animal health, agriculture, the environment and biotechnology. Many accomplishments in the microbiological sciences have significantly affected our lives, such as the development of treatments for infectious diseases, the prevention of food spoilage, the use of microorganisms to clean up pollutants and basic knowledge of the nature of all living things.

Among the topics to be presented are:

• Global food safety: Reducing the risk of microbial contamination from farm to table
  
  
• Emerging infections
  
  
• Plugging microbial activities and genomes into the energy grid
  
  
• New concepts and strategies for vaccines
  
  
• Updates on MRSA. Is nasal screening alone enough?
  
  
• The connections between human, animal and environmental health
  
  
• Latest research on the human microbiome and how the bacteria in our system affect our health for better and worse.
  
  
• Using magnetic bacteria to track cancer and monitor treatment response
  
  
• How microbes help preserve soft tissue in fossilized bone and bacterial DNA over 270 million years old.

The opening session of the meeting will examine the role of microbes have played in evolution, shaping the world around us, and will feature Andrew Knoll of the Harvard University Botanical Museum, who will give the ASM Lecture entitled "Microbes and Earth History."

Notes:

The ASM, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is the oldest and largest single biological membership organization with approximately 44,000 members worldwide. Members work in different organizations, including education (research institutions, undergraduate and graduate institutions, and medical dental and veterinary schools), industry (pharmaceutical, food and agriculture, biotechnology, environmental, and pollution control companies and hospitals), and federal and state governments (research laboratories and public health).

Source:
Jim Sliwa
American Society for Microbiology

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