The Fourth Aspergillus Meeting

 

March 18-20, 2007

Asilomar Conference Center

 

 

Scientific Program 

 

March 18, Sunday

3:00- 6:00        Registration

 

6:00                 Dinner

 

7:00-9:00         Welcome Reception—Sponsored by Novozymes

 

March 19, Monday

 

7:30-9:00         Breakfast

9:00-9:15         Welcome, introductions and announcements

 

Session I:

9:15-10:15       Genetics and Cell Biology Chair: Gerhard Braus

                        Dr. Norio Takeshita, Univ. of Karlsruhe. Cell end factors in A. nidulans

 

                        Dr. Jae Hyuk Yu, Univ. of Wisconsin. GPCRs, RGSs and velvet-like proteins

 

                        Dr. Kerstin Helmstaedt, Univ. of Göttingen. The nuclear migration protein NUDF associates with

                        BNFA and NUDC at spindle pole bodies in Aspergillus nidulans.

 

10:15-10:45     Coffee Break –Sponsored by Monsanto

 

Session II:     

10:45-11:45     Phylogenetics/Evolutionary Biology Chair: Paul Dyer

 

                        Dr. Arun Balajee, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta.

                        MLST and the molecular phylogeny of the Aspergillus section Fumigati.

                       

                        Dr. Peter J. Cotty, United States Department of Agriculture, University of

                        Arizona. Vegetative incompatibility in Aspergillus flavus.

 

                        Dr. Rolf F. Hoekstra, Wageningen University.

                        Experimental means to study evolutionary processes within Aspergillus

 

12-1:00            Lunch            

 

Session III:    

1:00-2:00         Annotation, Comparative Genomics, Databases  Chair: Masayuki Machida

                           

                                 Dr. Jennifer Wortman, The Institute for Genomic Research.

                        Comparative genomics as a tool for annotation improvement and analysis of related Aspergillus genomes.

 

                        Dr. Gavin Sherlock, Candida Database, CGD.  Using GBrowse to visualize multiple genome assemblies.

 

                        Drs. Jennifer Wortman, Steve Oliver, Dave Ussery, Jaap Visser and Cees van den Hondel.

                        The A. nidulans annotation project: a global community effort.

           

2:00-2:30         Community Directions Discussion    Moderator: Michelle Momany

 

2:30-2:45         Coffee Break  –Sponsored by Monsanto

 

Session IV:    

2:45-5:00         Talks selected from Abstracts      Chair: Gary Payne

 

                        Dr. Özgür Bayram, Georg August University, Institut of Microbiology & Genetics Goettingen.

                        The Aspergillus nidulans F-box Protein Project.

 
                        Dr. Jakob B. Nielsen, Technical University of Denmark, CMB, BioCentrum-DTU Kgs. Lyngby.
                        A transiently disrupted non-homologous end joining pathway in Aspergillus nidulans allows simple and efficient gene targeting.

                        Dr. Peter J. Punt, TNO Quality of Life, Microbiology Zeist.  New screening approaches for fungal strain development.

                        Dr. Natalie D. Fedorova, The Institute for Genomic Research, Microbial Genetics, Rockville, MD.  Comparative analysis of secondary
                         metabolism gene clusters from two strains of Aspergillus fumigatus and closely related species Neosartorya fischeri and Aspergillus clavatus.

                        Dr. Ronald de Vries, Utrecht University Microbiology, Utrecht. Colonies from the filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger are
                        highly differentiated in spite of cytoplasmic continuity.

 

                        Dr. William Steinbach, Pediatrics, Molecular Genetics, and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center. The benefits and real future of calcineurin
                        inhibition against invasive aspergillosis.

                       

                        Dr. William C. Nierman, The Institute for Genomic Research.   A pilot project for a high throughput Aspergillus fumigatus mutant strain Resource

 

                        Dr. Scott Harris, Proposed tiling project

 

5:15-6:00         Pontecorvo Lecture:  Joan Bennett, Rutgers University

                        “On being Aspergillus-o-centric:  From girl geek to fungus freak”

 

6:00-7:00         Dinner

 

7:00-10:00       Posters and drinks

                        Poster session and outstanding student poster sponsored by DSM

 

March 20, Tuesday

7:30-9:00         Breakfast

 

9:00-9:15        Elections

                       

Session V:     

9:15-10:15       Genomics/Proteomics/transcriptomics/metabolomics updates Chair:        Gustavo H. Goldman

 

                                 Dr. Manda Gent, Faculty of Life Sciences, Manchester University

                        A comparison of the expression of secreted hydrolases in Aspergillus fumigatus and Aspergillus nidulans under phospholipid-rich conditions

 

                        Dr. Olaf Kniemeyer, Leibniz-Institut für Naturstoff-Forschung und Infektionsbiologie Hans-Knöll-Institut. Comparative proteomics of the human-                        pathogenic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus          

 

                        Dr. Jens Frisvad, Center for Microbial Biotechnology, BioCentrum-DTU, Technical University of Denmark. The exometabolomics of Aspergilli

 

                        Dr. Noel van Peij, DSM. A. niger genome update

 

10:15-10:30     Coffee Break–Sponsored by Monsanto

 

Session VI:    

10:30-11:30     Industrial Applications  Chair: Scott Baker

 

                        Dr. Ken Bruno, Chemical & Biological Processes Development Group, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Cell Biology and

                        Citric Acid Production in Aspergillus niger.

 

                        Dr. Mikael Rørdam Andersen, Technical University of Denmark. Metabolic network driven interpretation of transcription data from Aspergillus

                        cell factories.

 

                        Dr. Adrian Tsang, Concordia University. Aspergillus niger as a host for global expression of secreted proteins.

 

 11:30               Announce election results and take any further discussion

                        Announce winner of student poster award--Sponsored by DSM

 

12:00-1:00       Lunch