Events

Duke Microbiome Center Seminar Series

The Duke Microbiome Center organizes a monthly seminar series featuring diverse researchers at the cutting edges of the microbiome field. The DMC Seminar Series is largely run by graduate students, postdocs, and fellows in DMC labs, and provides DMC trainees opportunities to build their networks and meet leaders in the field. All seminars are at 4:00pm on the third Monday of the month, with the exception of January. There will be a Zoom option, but — if conditions allow — there will also be an in-person meeting in MSRB3 1125. Email Cindy Wicker for details on how to join the seminar on Zoom.

2022-2023 Academic Year

The Fall 2022 seminar are:

    1. March 20, 2023- Barbara Rehermann-MD NIH Scientific Focus Areas: Clinical Research, Immunology, Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Virology
    2. April 17, 2023-Elizabeth P. Ryan, PhD Professor, Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences Colorado State University/Colorado School of Public Health
    3. May 15, 2023-Camila Carlos-Shanley MD Microbiology with emphasis on microbial ecology and genomics at Texas State.

The Fall 2022 Seminar were:

  1.  October 17, 2022- Kelly Wrighton,  Associate Professor Microbiome Research group     located at Colorado State University
  2. November 21, 2022- Andrew Goodman, Phd C.N.H.Long Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis and Director of Microbial Sciences Institute.
  3. December 12, 2022- Aayushi Uberoi– Postdoctoral scholar in the lab of Dr. Elizabeth Grice at the University of Pennsylvania.
  4. January 30, 2023- Daniel Leung MD– Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Adjunct Associate and Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Utah
  5. February  20, 2023- Allison J. Lopatkin, PhD Assistant Professor Computational Biology Department of Biology, Barnard College
  • The Spring 2022 seminars were:
  1. October 18 , 2021   –  Ariane L. Peralta, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Biology, East Carolina University
  2. November 15, 2021 – Matthew B. Sullivan, Ph.D., Professor of Microbiology, The Ohio State University
  3. December 20, 2021 – Jason Ridlon, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Animal Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  4. January 31, 2022 – Elizabeth Johnson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Molecular Nutrition, Cornell University
  5. February 21, 2022 – Gilberto E. Flores, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Biology, California State University, Northridge
  6. March 21, 2022 – Meghan Azad, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Child Health, University of Manitoba
  7. April 18, 2022 – Anthony D. Sung, Associate Professor of Medicine – Duke and Paul Wischmeyer, Anesthesiologist Critical Care Specialist
  8. May 16, 2022 – Tessa Andermann, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The Spring 2021 seminars were:
  • February 3, 2021: Steven D. Townsend, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Vanderbilt University “Prospecting human milk for non-infant uses”
  • March 3, 2021: Eric A. Franzosa, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health “New and improved methods for computational profiling of metagenomes”
  • April 7, 2021: Sarah Preheim, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Environmental Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins University “Capturing in situ virus-host range and interaction dynamics in bacterial populations through gene fusion with epicPCR”
  • May 5, 2021: Doug Kwon, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard and Director of Clinical Operations at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard “Vaginal and gut microbiomes in global HIV disease”
  • June 2, 2021: Ariangela J. Kozik, Ph.D., Research Fellow, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor “Airway microbial-immune relationships in adult asthma”

DMC Research-In-Progress Talks

Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who are working on microbiome-centered projects have the opportunity to get together in an informal setting to present their research findings and get feedback and advice from peers and faculty affiliated with the DMC bioinformatics group. These talks are scheduled for the first Monday of the month, 4:00-5:00pm. There will be a Zoom option, but — if conditions allow — there will also be an in-person meeting in MSRB3 1125. Email Cindy Wicker for details on how to join the Zoom meeting. If you would like to present in this forum, please email Josh Granek.

2021-2022 Academic Year

    • June 6, 2022 – Lawrence David & Sarah Armstrong and Jillian Hurst, PhD

Previous DMC Research-In-Progress Talks

  • October 4, 2021 – Marc Deshusses and Marina Blanco & Lydia Greene
  • November 1, 2021 – Diego Bohórquez and Christopher Donnelly/Ru-Rong Ji
  • December 6, 2021 – Dustin Middleton and Matthew Kelly & Alex McCumber
  • January 3, 2022 – Jay Jawahar and Matthew Tillman
  • February 7, 2022 – Elizabeth Hughes and Pixu Shi
  • March 7, 2022 – Chin Yee Tan and Meta Kuehn
  • April 4, 2022 – Zeni Ramirez and Katherine Mueller
  • May 2, 2022 – Ken Yokoyama and Anders Dohlman

DMC Startup Club

The Duke Microbiome Center has initiated the DMC Startup Club. Led by Dr. Raphael Valdivia, the DMC Startup Club aims to bring together community members from DMC and the rest of the Duke community to learn about translation, commercialization, and company formation in the microbiome sciences. The timing for this initiative is ideal, as venture investment in microbiome technologies is large and growing, and DMC labs have a number of different projects that need to be vetted. By focusing on translation and commercialization, we aim to motivate a culture shift on how DMC labs think about their own microbiome research. The DMC Startup Club provides a venue for understanding the current microbiome commercialization space and identify needs and opportunities. It will also create opportunities to learn about financing trends and opportunities in venture capital with a focus on the microbiome. Speakers include experts in venture capital, intellectual property and licensing, as well as CEOs and founders of microbiome companies. This will allow the DMC community to learn about the ABCs of starting a company and build professional networks that can help them do so. If you would like to receive updates on DMC Startup Club activities, please email Cindy Wicker.

Duke Microbiome Reading Group

The Duke Microbiome reading group meets regularly to discuss recent literature in the microbiome sciences. Our goal is to bring together researchers studying diverse systems, including human, plant, animal, and environmentally associated microbiomes. We focus on finding common ground in experimental, theoretical, and analytical approaches, while also learning about unique features of each other’s microbial systems. The reading group is currently organized by Jake Nash (he/him/his) who you can email if you would like to join at jake.nash@duke.edu.

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