PHILIPS ORAL HEALTHCARE BIOFILM SYMPOSIUM
Systems Biology Affecting Humans and the Environment
Monday- Tuesday, October 24th & 25th
Davidson Conference Center, University of Southern California (USC)
University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California

The symposium will take place in the Davidson Conference Center, on the University Park campus of the University of Southern California. The symposium will consist of plenary sessions, with 30 minute presentations of original data and correlative comment, and of poster sessions that aim to stimulate discussion of specific concepts and methods. Plenary presentations will be invited by the organizing committee, and posters will be accepted for presentation up until one month prior to the conference: September 24th. Abstracts will not be required of either plenary presenters or poster presenters, and no book of abstracts will be published, but poster presenters must submit titles and reserve space for their posters by the September 24th deadline.

DAY 1 : October 24

8:00 – 8:15 Welcome and a short history of biofilms in Dentistry
Hal Slavkin, Dean of Dentistry, University of Southern California.
Complexity of biofilm communities

8:15- 8:45 * Christoph Schaudinn – organization in sub-gingival biofilms
8:45-9:15 * Rob Palmer and Paul Kolenbrander – organization of supra-gingival plaque
9:15-9:45 * Dennis Cvitkovitch – role of cell-cell signaling in biofilm organization
9:45-10:15 * Ken Nealson – energy and nutrient cycling in complex biofilm communities
10:15-10:45 * Phil Stewart – heterogeneity of biofilm populations as seen in situ and by cell sorting
10:45-11:15 * Dianne Newman – energy cycling by shuttle molecules
11:15-11:45 * Bill Costerton – tertiary organization in tissue-associated biofilms

LUNCH = 11:45 – 1:00

Role of biofilms in chronic diseases

1:00-1:15 * Parish Sedghizadeh - role of biofilms in mandibular osteomyelitis
1:15-1:45 * Garth Ehrlich – Bacterial plurality : A new rubric for understanding otitis media and other chronic bacterial infections
1:45-2:15 * Mark Shirtliff – role of biofilms in osteomyelitis
2:15-2:45 * George Cierny – role of biofilms in orthopedic device-related infections
2:45-3:15 * Niels Hoiby – role of biofilms in pulmonary disease
3:15-3:35 * Tim Morris – An integrated program to optimize therapeutic agents for anti-biofilm activity.
3:35-4:00 * Marco Artini – Bacterial phenotype modulation as a therapeutic strategy against device-related infections : analysis on the molecular level.
4:00-4:30 * Mike Givskov – control of biofilm diseases by signal inhibitors
4:30-5:00 * Naomi Balaban – control of device-related infections by signal inhibitors

5:00-6:30 - Poster Session with Refreshments

DAY 2 : October 25

Role of inflammation in the etiology of biofilm infections

8:00-8:25 * Jeff Leid – resistance of biofilms to mucosal defenses
8:25 -8:50 * Sam Silverstein – resolution of biofilms by enhanced phagocytosis
8:50-9:15 * Claus Moser – the role of inflammation in cystic fibrosis pneumonia

New methods for the direct study of biofilms

9:15-9:40 * Andreas Luttge – analysis of biofilm structure by Vertical Scanning Inferometry (VSI)
9:40-10:05 * Manfred Auer – the use of electron tomography to analyze the tertiary structure of the biofilm matrix
10:05-10:30 * Paul Webster – the use of affinity markers to characterize the extra-cellular components of biofilms
10:30-10:55 * Paul D.Majors – NMR microscopy for the in situ examination of bacterial physiology
10:55-11:25 * Holger Daims and Michael Wagner – the use of the FISH, digital image analysis, and MAR techniques to analyze the structure and physiology of biofilm communities
11:25-11:50 * Satoshi Okabe – A polyphasic approach to study the structure, function, and eco-physiological interactions of complex biofilms
11:50-12:20 * Annette Moter – FISH : looking at human biofilms in situ

LUNCH = 12:20 – 1:30

New methods for genetic examinations of biofilms and microbial populations

1:30-1:55 * Joe Liao – diagnosis of urinary infections by 16 S rRna analysis
1:55-2:20 * Laura Selan – immune response to biofilms as a marker for graft infections.
2:20-2:45 * Steve Goodman – role of biofilms in assessing the meta-genome of a periodontal pathogen
2:45-3:10 * Mike Givskov – The use of reporter constructs and DNA array chips to examine gene expression in biofilms
3:10-3:35 * Mark Shirtliff – the HPLC modification of the DGGE method for population analysis
3:35-3:50 * Steve Gill – Community genomics of the human oral microbiome
3:50-4:15 * Roger Lasken – The use of gene amplification techniques in community analysis

4:15-5:00 Summary

Bill Costerton will summarize the symposium, with some emphasis on the ways in which modern methods of direct observation and molecular analysis can be used to study and to manage biofilm infections.

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