Opening Session I:

Dr. Ferran Garcia-Pichel

School of Life Sciences
Arizona State University

 

 

“Microbial Adaptations in Biological Soil Crusts, Earth's Most Extensive Biofilms”

Biological soil crusts from arid lands are extensive but little known microbial ecosystems subject to a variety of environmental extremes. I will review their basic ecology and biogeochemistry, focusing on their role in arid-land fertility, to then evaluate several adaptive strategies that allow their dominant microbes to thrive.

 

Biography: Dr. Garcia-Pichel earned a Bachelor's degree in Science (1986) from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain) and Master's (1988) and Ph.D. (2002) Degrees in Biology (Microbiology) from the University of Oregon. He worked as a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology during the Nineties, and joined Arizona State University (ASU) at the turn of the Millennium, where he is now Professor and Associate Dean of the School of Life Sciences, and where he chairs the University-wide graduate program in Microbiology. He has been a Fulbright Scholar, named an ASU Faculty Exemplar, and is a past president of the Arizona/Southern Nevada Branch of ASM. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. His research, supported largely by the NSF, USDA and NASA, focuses on the microbial ecology and geomicrobiology of cyanobacteria and the microbial communities these phototrophs support. Together with his associates, he approaches scientific problems in an integrated manner that involves biogeochemistry, microbial physiology and molecular genetics. His main research foci involve microbial and community adaptations to extreme or stressful conditions such as excessive solar radiation, high salt concentrations and desiccation, and the ability of microbes to form or destroy mineral substrates.

 


Opening Session II:

Dr. Wesley Van Voorhis

Allergy and Infectious Diseases Division
Department of Medicine
University of Washington


Wes photo

 

"Calcium Dependent Protein Kinases as a drug target for Malaria, Toxoplasomosis, and Cryptosporidiosis: An Achilles Heel"

New therapeutics are needed for infections caused by Cryptosporidium parvum, Toxoplasma gondii, and Plasmodium falciparum. Calcium dependent protein kinase 1 (CDPK1) of T. gondii is thought to be critical for the invasion process of T. gondii and thus is a drug target for toxoplasmosis. By inference, the homologous CDPK of C. parvum and P. falciparum are likely to be critical for infection by cryptosporidium and malaria. We have solved the crystal structures of TgCDPK1 and CpCDPK1 and have shown the active sites are susceptible to "bumped" kinase inhibitors (BKI) that do not inhibit mammalian kinases. This differential sensitivity is due to the absence of a bulky gatekeeper sidechain in the ATP binding site of both TgCDPK1 and CpCDPK1 that is present in mammalian protein kinases. Thus, these BKI offer tremendous selectivity for inhibition of TgCDPK1 & CpCDPK1 vs. human kinases. Furthermore, these BKI compounds show good activity against small gatekeeper CDPK's of P. falciparum. BKI compounds have shown minimal toxicity in mice when administered in the course of other work. Our preliminary results show that multiple BKI compounds based on a known scaffold can inhibit TgCDPK1, P. falciparum CDPK1 & 4, & CpCDPK1 and also inhibit T. gondii and C. parvum cell invasion at low nanomolar concentrations. Expression of a mutant TgCDPK1 with a Met gatekeeper in T. gondii cells leads to resistance to the BKI effect, demonstrating the BKI inhibits cell entry via CDPK1.

 

Biography: Wesley C. Van Voorhis, MD, PhD, Head of the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Professor of Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Global Health and Microbiology, Director of Training Program, Infectious Diseases, University of Washington, Seattle, WA. Wes was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona and attended MIT as an undergraduate. He attended Cornell Medical College and Rockefeller University for his MD/PhD where he was the first to discover and characterize human dendritic cells (antigen presenting accessory cells). His advisor, Dr. Ralph Steinman was recently awarded the Lasker Award for Dr. Steinman's discovery of dendritic cells. Wes spent time in Brazil during his graduate work working on leprosy and thereafter resolved to work on problems of global health importance. He trained in Internal Medicine at UC San Francisco. Wes is a Professor of Medicine and an Adjunct Professor of Global Health and Microbiology at the University of Washington. Wes practices medicine, teaches, does research on malaria, trypanosomes, leishmania, and syphilis, leads the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (85 faculty and 250 staff). He has published over 130 peer-reviewed papers and won numerous academic awards. In addition to enjoying his work, Wes likes to ride his bike, run, hike, ski and work in his yard. Wes is incredibly lucky to be married to Debra Jarvis, a prominent Seattle Author and Hospice/Hospital Chaplain who has written, most recently: "It's Not About the Hair: and Other Certainties of Life & Cancer".

 

 

 


 

Keynote speaker:

Dr. Tom Besser

Washington State University
School for Global Animal Health

TB photo

 

"Enough to Eat vs Safe to Eat: the Economics, Politics and Science of Escherichia coli O157:H7"

With the world's most abundant and inexpensive food supply, produced by the lowest percentage of the country's workforce in the world, do United States residents have good reason to worry about the safety of their food? A seemingly constant stream of food-borne disease outbreaks publicized in the media would suggest the answer is yes. In this talk, I will highlight some of the scientific, policy and economic issues relevant to the prevention and control (or lack thereof) of one specific agent of food-borne illness, Escherichia coli O157:H7. Almost twenty years after the 'Jack in the Box' outbreak, why hasn't this problem gone away?

Biography: Thomas Besser's research focuses on agents that cause human food-borne diseases. His research to develop practical measures to reduce the prevalence of these agents in animals, as a means of reducing human disease risks, focuses on the ecology and epidemiology of agents in reservoir animal populations. Specifically, he researches non-typhoid Salmonella and thermophilic Campylobacter species, E. coli, and the use of antimicrobial drugs in animal husbandry. In 2001, Dr. Besser was a U.S.-U.K. Fulbright Fellow in Food Safety Research. (source: //globalhealth.wsu.edu/faculty/besser.aspx)