We're just a week away from the 6th Annual SEA-PHAGES Symposium.  Held at HHMI's Janelia Farm Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia, this event brings together faculty and students from every active SEA-PHAGES school.  This year, we have over 200 participants with 18 student-presented talks, over 70 student-presented posters, and another dozen or so faculty and TA posters.

Keynote Address

Dr. Marty Chalfie from Columbia University will deliver the keynote address at this year's Symposium.  Dr. Chalfie works on nerve cell development and function using the nematode C. elegans as a model system.  He won't be the first non-phage researcher to speak at the Symposium (Gerry Rubin in 2012, Drew Endy in 2013) but he will be the first nobel laureate.  Dr. Chalfie shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008 for his work on Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP).

New Hosts

We've seen increasing numbers of SEA-PHAGES Members adding hosts other than M. smegmatis to their phage-hunting activities, and this year's Symposium will feature a special session to highlight the progress that has been made on some of these alternative host bacteria.  Four SEA-PHAGES faculty members will speak, each about a host of interest and its phages.

• Dr. Sandra Burnett from Brigham Young University on Paenibacillus larvae phages
• Dr. Lee Hughes from the University of North Texas on Streptomyces phages
• Dr. Louise Temple from James Madison University on Bacillus phages
• Dr. Javier Lopez from Carnegie Mellon University on Arthrobacter phages

We're looking forward to these talks, as well as the Symposium in general!