History
The first FEMS Summer School for Postdocs took place at MedILS from 28 August to 7 September 2019.
Messages from the Co-Directors of the FEMS Summer School for Postdocs:
Dear Potential Students, it is my great pleasure to invite you to participate in this year’s Summer School for Postdocs. I’ve always believed that it’s easier to think out-of-the-box when you are not in the box and MedILS is the perfect setting for that! Our meeting will be a great opportunity to talented young scientists such as yourself, to meet with expert and highly talented scientists such as my co-director, Prof. Graham Walker, and socialize in a setting that promotes scientific and intellectual growth. Hoping to see you this summer. – Prof. Miroslav Radman, MedILS
I am excited about participating in the upcoming 2019 FEMS Summer School on “Biological Robustness: Evolution of Bacterial Resistance to Death” that will be held at the Mediterranean Institute for Life Sciences (MedILS) in Split, Croatia. My co-director, Miroslav Radman, has been a true pioneer in this area of research throughout his career and we will be joined by an outstanding team of highly accomplished expert scientists. The topics that will be covered are important and topical and should expand your intellectual horizons. Moreover, the meeting will provide many opportunities for you to get to know both the mentors and your own peers. I encourage you to apply and will look forward to meeting you in person in August! – Prof. Graham Walker, MIT
Content
The content of the first Summer School will be focused on the following theme:
BIOLOGICAL ROBUSTNESS: EVOLUTION OF BACTERIAL RESISTANCE TO DEATH
The FEMS Summer School will explore common strategies and particular mechanisms of bacterial resistance to death under extreme conditions, e.g., desiccation, extreme temperatures, salinity, generally toxic chemicals, radiation, antibiotics and immunity.
When facing lethal challenge by extreme conditions, bacteria have evolved two main solutions:
- Extremophilia, which converts extreme conditions into optimal conditions by biological adaptation
- Robustness, which is cellular capacity to resuscitate after “clinical death” caused by excessive biological damage
The success of either of the two evolutionary strategies requires sufficient residual proteome activity to (i) allow for the continuity of the adaptive evolutionary process and (ii) to trigger the snowballing of molecular renewal and repair processes resulting in survival.
Therefore, the first FEMS Summer School will:
- review the plethora of lethal treatments to which certain bacteria evolved extreme resistance
- seek for most upstream cause of bacterial death common to all lethal treatments
- search for potential common mechanism(s) of bacterial death
- explore the means of proteome protection and defence that allows robust bacteria to resist deadly challenges in natural and hospital environments
- explore mechanisms by which inter-cellular communication in bacterial communities improves survival of individual cells
While being primarily a school, substantial free time and an informal and cosy environment and atmosphere will facilitate academic and networking interactions between all attendees.
Programme
The final day by day programme for the FEMS Summer School for Postdocs.
Day 1 – Wednesday, August 28
Registration – Arrival of attendees
17h00: Opening remarks
- Prof. Miroslav Radman (30min)
- Prof. Graham Walker (30min)
18h00: FEMS President, Prof. d-r Bauke Oudega (20min)
18h25: FEMS Director of events and Internationalization, Prof. d-r Vaso Taleski (20min)
18h45: Students Presentations (first half) – 1h10
20h00: Dinner
Day 2 – Thursday, August 29
9h00: Students Presentations (second half) – 1h10
10h10: Coffee Break
10h30: Graham Walker
- Bacterial responses to DNA damage: Roles of translesion DNA synthesis.
12h00: Ivan Matic
- Impact of the subinhibitory concentrations of antibiotics on bacteria
13h30: Lunch
14h30: Suzanne Sommer
- Deinococcus response to radiations (IrrE, DdrO, DrRRA, DdrI, LexA)
16h00: Ksenija Zahradka (45min)
- Double-strand DNA break repair and genome rearrangements in Deinococcus radiodurans
16h50: Coffee Break
17h10: Meet the Mentors
Day 3 – Friday, August 30
9h00: Suzanne Sommer
- DNA double strand break repair, chromosome segregation and restoration of cell division (SSA, ESDSA, HR and our recent work on PprA and RecN)
10h30: Coffee Break
10h45: Davor Zahradka (45min)
- RecBCD- RecFOR-independent pathway of homologous recombination in Escherichia coli.
11h30: Meet the Mentors
13h00: Lunch
14h30: Thomas Nystrom
- Finding genes required for cellular rejuvenation
16h00: Fernando Baquero
- The resistomes
Day 4 – Saturday, August 31
9h00: Graham Walker
- Complexities of bacterial cell death from antibiotics and certain other stresses.
10h30: Ivan Matic
- Evolution of mutation rates in bacteria
12h00: Coffee Break
12h15: Meet the Mentors
13h30: Lunch
14h30: Fernando Baquero
- Multi-level population biology of antibiotic resistance
16h00: Thomas Nystrom
- Deciding between death or longevity; a metacaspase case study
Day 5 – Sunday, September 1st
Day trip – Free Day
Day 6 – Monday, September 2nd
9h00: Anita Krisko: Talk 1
10h30: Coffee Break
11h00: Meet the Mentors Day
13h00: Lunch
14h30: Meet the Mentors day (2h)
16h00: Free evening
Day 7 – Tuesday, September 3rd
9h00: David Sherratt
- Managing a chromosome; replication, recombination-repair and unlinking
10h30: Coffee Break
10h50: Anita Krisko: Talk 2
13h00: Lunch
14h30: Branka Bernard
- Interactive Workshop on Writing Grant Proposals
Day 8 – Wednesday, September 4th
9h00: David Sherratt
- Managing a bacterial chromosome; organisation, individualisation and segregation by SMC complexes
10h30: Round Table (+ Formation of groups for project proposal)
13h00: Lunch
14h30: Patrick Bavoil – FEMS Director of Research and Publications (45min + 45min of discussion)
16h00: Preparation of Project Proposals
Day 9 – Thursday, September 5
10h00: Discussion groups: Anita Krisko, David Sherratt, and Miroslav Radman
13h00: Lunch
14h30: Presentation Project Proposals (first half)
Day 10 – Friday, September 6
11h00: Presentation Project Proposals (Second Half)
13h30: Lunch
14h30: Closing Remarks + Announcement of Best Project Proposal
Day 11 – Saturday, September 7
Departure Day
Mentors and Speakers
Prof. Miroslav Radman – FEMS-Lwoff Award winner (2011) for his research of DNA repair mechanism in Deinococcus radiodurans, Fellow of French Academy of Sciences, Corresponding member of Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences, Foreign honorary member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Member of The Academy of Europe – Co-founder of MedILs and Co-Director of Summer School
Prof. Graham Walker – Director of Walker Lab, MIT, American Cancer Society Professor; HHMI Professor; MacVicar Faculty Fellow – Co-Director of Summer School
- Presentation 1): Bacterial responses to DNA damage: Roles of translesion DNA synthesis
- Presentation 2): Complexities of bacterial cell death from antibiotics and certain other stresses
Prof. Ivan Matic – Director of Ta Ma Ra lab, Paris Descartes Medical Faculty – Co-Founder of MedILS
- Presentation 1): Impact of the subinhibitory concentrations of antibiotics on bacteria
- Presentation 2): Evolution of mutation rates in bacteria
Prof. David Sherratt – Leader of Sherratt Lab, Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford – Iveagh Professor of Microbiology
- Presentation 1): Managing a chromosome; replication, recombination-repair and unlinking
- Presentation 2): Managing a bacterial chromosome; organisation, individualisation and segregation by SMC complexes
Prof. Suzanne Sommer – Institut de Génétique et Microbiologie (IGMORS), Université Paris-Sud
- Presentation 1): Deinococcus response to radiations (IrrE, DdrO, DrRRA, DdrI, LexA)
- Presentation 2): DNA double strand break repair, chromosome segregation and restoration of cell division (SSA, ESDSA, HR and our recent work on PprA and RecN)
Prof. Thomas Nyström – Principal Investigator, Nyström Lab, Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Institute of Biomedicine, University of Gothenburg – Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Class VI, the American Academy of Microbiology, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and EMBO
- Presentation 1): Finding genes required for cellular rejuvenation
- Presentation 2): Deciding between death or longevity; a metacaspase case study
Prof. Fernando Baquero – Founder, former Director, and currently a Research Professor in the Department of Microbiology as well as Scientific Director of the Ramón y Cajal Institute for Research in Biomedicine at the Ramón y Cajal University Hospital in Madrid, Spain – Member of CIBERESP and Associated Scientist at the Astrobiology Center (CSIC) in Madrid
- Presentation 1): The resistomes
- Presentation 2): Multi-level population biology of antibiotic resistance
- Presentation 3): One-Health and Global-Health issues in antibiotic resistance
Dr. Ksenija Zahradka – Senior Research Associate, Ruđer Bošković Institute (IRB) Zagreb
- Presentation 1): Double-strand DNA break repair and genome rearrangements in Deinococcus radiodurans
- Presentation 2): RecBCD- RecFOR-independent pathway of homologous recombination in
Escherichia coli.
Dr. Anita Krisko – Junior Group Leader, MedILS – UNESCO-L’Oreal prize winner ˝For Women in Science˝
Dr. Davor Zahradka – Senior Research Associate, Ruđer Bošković Institute (IRB) Zagreb
The people involved in the organization of the summer school from the MedILS side are:
- Dr Branka Bernard
- Ms Jelena Ruzic
- Ms Karla Combes
- Ms Irena Rajic
The people involved in the organization of the summer school from the FEMS side are:
- Prof. Vaso Taleski
- Mr Matthew Harvey
- Mr Joseph Brooks Shuttleworth
- Mr Cameron Wright
- Ms Carianne Buurmeijer
- Mr Corrado Nai
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All but one of the FEMS journals are now fully open access (OA), with one journal, FEMS Microbiology Letters remaining a subscription journal with free-to-publish and OA options. Open access is key to supporting the FEMS mission of disseminating high quality research as widely as possible: when high quality, peer reviewed sound science is open access, anyone, anywhere in the world with an internet connection, can read it.