MIMG Hosted Fall 2021 KY-TN American Society for Microbiology Meeting

MIMG hosted (via Zoom) the Fall 2021 meeting of the KY-TN American Society for Microbiology Branch on November 5-6, 2021. Assistant Professor Erin Garcia and Associate Professor Sarah D’Orazio served as Co-Directors of the virtual conference. The meeting featured Keynote Seminars by two American Society for Microbiology Distinguished Lecturers. Dr. Kimberlee Musser (Lab Director, New York State Public Health Wadsworth Center David Axelrod Institute) gave a presentation entitled “Inside a Legionnaire’s Disease Outbreak Investigation” and Dr. Kristin Parent (Michigan State University) gave a talk entitled “Structure and Function of Shigella Phages: From a Neighborhood Near You.” Six junior faculty from various campuses in KY and TN gave invited talks, including our own Dr. Ashfaqul Alam and Dr. Natalia Korotkova. Research Staff Tim Saylor (Stevenson Lab) also gave a ten minute talk as one of the selected abstracts. Graduate students Jamila Tucker and Zaria Elery competed in the 3 Minute Thesis contest held Friday evening, and Jamila Tucker won 3rd place in the competition. The next branch meeting will take place in Spring 2022, and is likely to be held in person in Memphis, TN. For up-to-date information about the KY-TN ASM branch, please go to the newly designed website: https://asm-tn-ky.org.