Overview

The Scientific Seminar Series is designed to reach the microbiology community to disseminate knowledge across its professional networks. The events are designed as a regularly repeated series of short (typically 1–2 hour) online meetings.

The Journal of Medical Microbiology (JMM) monthly seminar series is designed to showcase high-quality and timely research from the journal’s key authors. JMM welcomes everything from laboratory research to clinical trials, including bacteriology, virology, mycology, and parasitology. The JMM seminars will reflect this same comprehensive scientific content.

Organising Committee 2023/24
  • Professor Kalai Mathee (Lifetime Omics, Miami, USA)
  • Professor Jose-Luis Puente (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico)
Organising Committee 2022/23
  • Professor Kalai Mathee (Lifetime Omics, Miami, USA)
  • Dr Norman Fry (UK Health Security Agency, UK)
  • Dr Tim Inglis (University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia)

Sign up to attend this series of seminars via the 'Registration' tab. Instructions on how to join the Zoom session will be sent ahead of each seminar.

Please note all times listed in the programme are UK time.

Programme

Session

Session View

Friday 25 July, Afternoon

Exploring the low-abundant members of the oral microbiome

Microbiome research traditionally focuses on highly abundant microbes, often overlooking low-abundant species despite their potential to significantly impact microbial community function and contribute to dysbiosis. Our scoping review highlighted this issue, finding that many human microbiome studies using NGS employ arbitrary abundance cut-offs (e.g., <1%), which hinders a complete understanding of microbial diversity and the roles of rarer members like fungi and archaea, which abundances were infrequently reported. Addressing the specific challenge of studying low-abundant archaea in the oral cavity, we developed a specialised bioinformatic pipeline to re-analyse publicly available oral shotgun sequencing data (from 7 datasets). This targeted approach successfully detected low-abundance archaea (mainly Euryarchaeota, Thermoplasmatota, Nitrosphaeria) in saliva and plaque from individuals with and without dental caries. While methanogenic archaea were present in both groups, the analysis revealed methanogenesis genes were underexpressed in caries-active samples.

Organisers

Registration

Sign up to attend this series of seminars below. You will receive an email with information about each upcoming presentation, including joining instructions, a Zoom link, and any other relevant information, two days before each seminar. A second reminder email will be sent one hour before each seminar. Unfortunately, if you have signed up less than one hour before the seminar, you will not be able to attend until the next seminar in the series.

Please note all times listed in the programme are UK time.


 * By completing and submitting this form, you understand and hereby consent that the personal data provided by you in this form will be collected, processed and used by the Microbiology Society to send you any communication relating to the event. You understand and hereby consent that the personal data provided by you in this form will be collected, processed and used by the Microbiology Society for the following additional purposes, but only if you tick the relevant box above. The Microbiology Society is the data controller for the purpose of Data Protection Legislation. The Microbiology Society is a charity registered in England and Wales (Charity Number 264017), a charity registered in Scotland (Charity Number SC039250) and a company limited by guarantee, registered in England (Company Number 1039582).

Technology
All seminars will be run via Zoom, a link for which will be sent to you via email prior to the meeting. Please ensure you have updated to the latest version of the Zoom desktop or mobile application (version 5.3 or higher is recommended).