Gut Check: The Hidden World of Microbes

Join acclaimed science writer Carl Zimmer in conversation with two of UCSF’s leading researchers as they explore how we have evolved to coexist with – and sometimes depend upon – the microbes that inhabit our world. The discussion will take us on a tour of human’s most minute friends and foes, from malaria to viruses and e. coli, shedding light on how they’ve evolved alongside us, new approaches to stop them, and the possibility of using the bacteria within our guts to create a new generation of antibiotics.

When: Friday, November 4th, 12:30-1:30 PM

Where: Byers Auditorium, Genentech Hall, UCSF Mission Bay Campus (campus map)

Cost: FREE

Speakers:

Joseph DeRisi, PhD, is currently a professor and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator at UCSF in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics. Prior to joining the faculty at UCSF in 1999, DeRisi was a UCSF Fellow. He completed his graduate work at Stanford University in the laboratory of Patrick O. Brown, where he was one of the early pioneers of DNA microarray technology and whole genome expression profiling. He is nationally recognized for his efforts to make this technology and the data it generates accessible and freely available. DeRisi also served as the lead instructor of the popular Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory course “Making and Using cDNA Microarrays.” DeRisi has been a Searle Scholar and Packard Fellow, and holds the first Tomkins Chair at UCSF. He was the recipient of the 2001 JPMorgan Chase Health award, the 2004 WIRED RAVE award, a MacArthur Award in 2004 and the Chabot Space and Science Center’s “Scientist of the Year” award. DeRisi’s laboratory is now focused on topics related to infectious disease, especially Plasmodium falciparum, and various viral pathogens.

Michael Fischbach, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences at UCSF and a member of the California Institute of Quantitative Biosciences (QB3).  His laboratory uses a combination of genomics and chemistry to identify and characterize small molecules from microbes, with an emphasis on the human microbiome. Fischbach received his PhD degree in chemistry from Harvard in 2007, where he worked jointly in the laboratories of Christopher Walsh and David Liu on the role of iron acquisition in bacterial pathogenesis and on the biosynthesis of antibiotics. Before coming to UCSF, Fischbach spent two years as an independent fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital coordinating a collaborative effort based at the Broad Institute to develop genomics-based approaches to the discovery of small molecules from microbes. Fischbach is a recipient of the National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award, a Medical Research award from the W.M. Keck Foundation, and the Young Investigator Grant for Probiotics Research from the Global Probiotics Council.

Carl Zimmer is the author of ten books about science. His works include “Soul Made Flesh,” a history of neuroscience, which was named one of the top 100 books of the year by The New York Times Book Review, and dubbed a “tour-de-force” by The Sunday Telegraph. His book, “Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea” was called “as fine a book as one will find on the subject” by Scientific American. His other books include “At the Water’s Edge,” a book about major transitions in the history of life; “The Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins;” and “Parasite Rex,” which the Los Angeles Times described as “a book capable of changing how we see the world.” “Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life,” published in 2008 was hailed by The Boston Globe as “superb…quietly revolutionary.” It was a finalist for the 2009 Los Angeles Times Science Book Prize. The New York Times Book Review calls Carl Zimmer “as fine a science essayist as we have.”