…Research News

A new book on plasmids:

• Masahiro Sota and Eva M. author chapter in "Plasmids: Current Research and Future Trends", will be available in July this year: http://www.horizonpress.com/hsp/books/pla.html
• Chapter 5: Horizontal Gene Transfer Mediated by Plasmids, by Masahiro Sota and Eva M.Top
  

Short course

• Advances in Microbial Ecology [pdf]. University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez, March 16-19.

Upcoming meetings where we will present:

• The 108th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, Boston, June 1-5, 2008.
  Session: Extant Horizontal Gene Transfer in Microbial Communities: Advances in Observation, Description, and Prediction, at Individual Level Conveners: Barth F Smets, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby; Jan-Ulrich Kreft, University of Birmingham, UK
  Presentation: Stephen Krone et al., University of Idaho, Moscow. “Spatial dynamics of plasmid spread: theory and experiment”
• Plasmid Biology 2008 Conference, Gdansk, Poland, August 30th – September 5th, 2008.

Meetings where we have presented:

• The NSF/USDA-CSREES Microbial Genome Sequencing Program awardees workshop, San Diego, January 12-12, 2008.
• Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease PI meeting
  (National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH, and the National Science Foundation), Albuquerque, NM, December 2-5, 2007.
• Western IDeA States’ Symposium on Evolutionary Medicine, March 14-17, 2007, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
• 9th Symposium on Bacterial Genetics and Ecology, June 23-27, 2007, Wernigerode, Germany.
• Gordon Research Conference on Microbial Population Biology, July 22-27, 2007, Proctor Academy, Andover, New Hampshire, USA.

Links to - research and teaching colleagues, organizations and journals

The Virtual Genome Project (VGP)

The VGP site was established as part of Dr. Top's public access and outreach program to share the activities of her lab's research projects with a wider audience. It is a free resource for people interested in the process of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) and its ecological and evolutionary significance. Our focus is on understanding plasmids and how they adapt to hosts. The VGP site will grow over the coming months.
Virtual Genome Project...

Top Lab Welcomes Dr. Jaroslaw Eugeniusz Król

Dr. Król joins Top lab as a new postdoctoral scientist. He comes to us from Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, Poland where he worked with the Prof. Anna Skorupska group in the Department of General Microbiology researching the genetic analysis of polysaccharide biosynthesis and genomic studies of Rhizobium leguminosarum bv. trifolii.   Dr. Król's CV