Focused Meetings 2022 and Scientific Seminar Series

Focused Meetings 2022

Following disruption to our Focused Meetings programme due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Society is planning to organise one of its most ambitious and varied meetings programmes in 2022.

The schedule will feature a variety of in-person meetings that were scheduled to take place in 2020 and 2021, alongside some newly planned meetings, covering the depth and breadth of microbiology.

Microbial Cycling of Volatile Organic Compounds
7–8 February 2022
John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK

The first Focused Meeting of the year will bring together those working within the field of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs). The meeting will address recent advances in the field of BVOC microbiology, such as the discovery of new degradation pathways, the role of BVOCs in inter- and intra-species signalling, new techniques to explore the volatile metabolome and synthetic biology approaches to create novel BVOC biosynthetic pathways.

Europic 2022
5–9 June 2022
Harrogate Majestic Hotel & Spa, UK

Europic is the world premier virology conference that focuses on studies of picornaviruses, a family of important human and animal pathogens including enteroviruses (e.g. poliovirus, rhinoviruses, EV-A71, EV-D68), hepatitis A virus and foot-and-mouth disease virus, as well as many other viruses whose number is growing by the day with new discoveries.

The Microbiology Society is delighted to be hosting the meeting in 2022 to bring together the international community to hear about the latest advancements in the field of picornaviruses and enjoy numerous networking opportunities to help strengthen relationships within the scientific community.

What’s New in Cryptosporidium?
4–5 July 2022
Swansea University, UK

Cryptosporidium is the most common parasitic cause of gastroenteritis in the UK and one of the most important contributors to the burden of childhood diarrhoea morbidity and mortality globally.

This one-and-a-half-day meeting will provide an opportunity to those working in clinical, industrial, veterinary and agricultural settings to hear about advances in the field. The event will share good practice and establish collaborations with others across science, industry, environmental health and clinical and veterinary practice.

British Yeast Group 2022: From Genomes to Cells
Date to be confirmed
University College London, UK

Yeasts are very versatile, model unicellular eukaryotes that have been extensively used for over a century to explore fundamental aspects of living systems. Annual gatherings of the British yeast community have taken place since the 1980s, and the Microbiology Society is pleased to be incorporating the BYG meeting in its Focused Meeting Programme for the fifth time next year.

The programme will incorporate a broad range of talks from invited speakers and will provide plenty of opportunities for early career researchers to present their research through posters and offered oral presentations.

The meeting will include a varied social agenda providing opportunities to make new connections and strengthen the yeast community in Britain and beyond.

Cell–Cell Communication in Bacteria – Fundamental and Applied Aspects
28–30 June 2022
University of Cambridge, UK

Communication between single species and within polymicrobial communities has profound impacts on host–microbial interactions in the context of health and disease and its understanding offers diverse translational opportunities in medicine, agricultural and industrial contexts.

The Cell–Cell Communication in Bacteria (CCCB) Focused Meeting will bring together a multidisciplinary audience of microbiologists, structural, systems, evolutionary and synthetic biologists, mathematicians, chemists, biochemists and ecologists. The event will provide a vital forum for the dissemination and exchange of new information and will look to foster the next generation of scientists working within this area.

Genomes of Microbiomes
Date and venue to be confirmed

The field of microbial genomics is progressing rapidly and has attracted growing interest within the research community of microbiologists. This meeting will bring together an audience of researchers who are keen to hear about how advances in sequencing technologies and computational methods can be best exploited to understand the microbial world.

This meeting will provide a forum for the discussion of the impact of metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs), including how they should be incorporated into public databases. It will focus on metagenomics advances and the contributions technologies are making toward more readily achieving complete microbial genome sequence assemblies.

Mining the Microbiome for Antimicrobials and New Therapeutics
Date to be confirmed
Venue to be confirmed, Ireland

With the emergence of antibiotic resistance and the decreasing effectiveness of antibiotics, there is growing interest in the potential of mining the gut microbiome for new antimicrobials.

This Focused Meeting will provide an insight into the current state of research on the exploration of the interactions between the gut microbiota, pathogens and the mucosal immune system in the search for new alternatives for the treatment of infectious disease.

Protein Secretion at the Host–Pathogen Interface
Date to be confirmed
Queen’s University Belfast, UK

Bacterial infections remain one of the top causes of human suffering and death globally and have a huge economic impact on agriculture and animal production. The ability to cause disease of nearly all important bacterial pathogens depends on secretion systems, which deliver virulence factors to the surface or directly into host cells, where they modulate host processes to the benefit of the bacteria. There have been plenty of new scientific discoveries pushing our understanding of the molecular basis of host–pathogen interactions to new levels, and this meeting has been organised to foster the exchange of information, networking and new collaborations across the research community.

Understanding and Predicting Microbial Evolutionary Dynamics
Date and venue to be confirmed

This Focused Meeting will bring together leading researchers working on microbial evolution from across varied disciplines, including infectious diseases, genomics, environmental microbiology, biotechnology and mathematical modelling.

It has been designed to provide a unique opportunity to allow this multidisciplinary community to identify the common themes and shared approaches for understanding and predicting microbial evolutionary dynamics across these diverse systems and applications.

Scientific Seminar Series

The Scientific Seminar Series is designed to reach a priority microbiology community to support it in disseminating knowledge across its professional networks. The events are designed as a regularly repeated series of short (typically 1–2 h) online meetings.

Microbial Genomics Seminar Series

This monthly seminar series from Microbial Genomics will bring together the community of microbiologists using genomic approaches to discover more about viruses, bacteria, archaea and microbial eukaryotes. Centred around the journal’s key section areas, this series will highlight the latest research in Microbial Communities, Pathogens & Epidemiology, Genomic Methodologies, Functional Genomics, Microbe–Niche Interactions, and Evolution and Responses to Interventions, and provide a forum for networking and exchange of knowledge.

JMM Seminar Series

A monthly seminar series from the Journal of Medical Microbiology (JMM) that is designed to disseminate high-quality and timely research from the journal’s key authors. JMM is the go-to interdisciplinary journal for medical, dental and veterinary microbiology. It welcomes everything from laboratory research to clinical trials, including bacteriology, virology, mycology and parasitology.

Further details and information on how to register to participate in the Scientific Seminar Series can be found on our website.