Day 1
Monday, September 18th, 2023

08.00 – 09.00 Registration

Session 1. Building the wall (Chair: Natividad Ruiz, Ohio State Univ, USA)

09.00 – 09.30 Irina Shlosman (Harvard Univ, USA)
Allosteric activation of cell wall synthesis during bacterial growth

09.30 – 10.00 Anke Becker (Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany)
Unipolar cell wall growth in alphaproteobacterial Hyphomicrobiales: setting the growth

10.00 – 10.15 Short talk 1
10.15 – 10.30 Short talk 2

10.30 Coffee break & Posters

11.00 – 11.30 Jeanne Salje (Cambridge Univ, UK)
Peptidoglycan in obligate intracellular bacteria

11.30 – 12.00 Simonetta Gribaldo (Institut Pasteur, France)
One or two membranes? Diderm Firmicutes illuminate the evolution of the bacterial cell envelope

12.30 Lunch

Afternoon break
15.00 – 16.30 Coffee & Posters

Session 2. Modifying the Wall (Chair: Elitza Tocheva, Univ British Columbia, Canada)

16.30 – 17.00 Dominique Missiakas (Univ Chicago, USA)
Peptidoglycan polymerization and cleavage: an enzyme complex to regulate the length of glycan strands in S. aureus

17.00 – 17.30 Felipe Cava (Univ Umea, Sweden)
Genome-wide peptidoglycan profiling of Vibrio cholerae

17.30 – 17.45 Short talk 3
17.45 – 18.00 Short talk 4

18.00 – 18.30 Tobias Dörr (Cornell Univ, USA)
Regulation of cell wall turnover in Gram-negative pathogens

18.30 – 19.00 Xavier De Bolle (Univ Namur, Belgium)
Structure and growth of the Brucella abortus envelope

19.00 Keynote Lecture – Simon Foster (Univ Sheffield, UK)
The Bacterial cell wall in Life and Death

Day 2
Tuesday, September 19th, 2023

Session 3. Interactions with the wall (Chair: Sérgio Filipe, Univ Nova Lisboa, Portugal)

09.00 – 09.30 Laure El Chamy (Univ Saint Joseph, Lebanon)
Modulation of innate immune defenses by Bacilli: A Drosophila melanogaster perspective

09.30 – 10.00 Ethel Bayer-Santos (Univ São Paulo, Brazil)
Enemy fire: Salmonella T6SS antibacterial effectors targeting the cell envelop

10.00 – 10.15 Short talk 5
10.15 – 10.30 Short talk 6

10.30 Coffee break & Posters

11.00 – 11.30 Qiao Yuan (Nanyang Technological Univ, Singapore)
Impact of microbiota-derived peptidoglycan on infections by Candida albicans

11.30 – 12.00 Bavesh Kana (Univ Witwatersand, Sout Africa)
Mycobacterial peptidoglycan remodelling: Implications for cell division, tuberculosis diagnosis and host pathogen interactions

12.30 Lunch

Afternoon break
15.00 – 16.30 Coffee & Posters

Session 4. Inhibition of the wall (Chair: Ivo G Boneca, Institut Pasteur, France)

16.30- 17.00 Dena Lyras (Monash Univ, Australia)
Anti-sporulation strategies targeting peptidoglycan synthesis in Clostridioides difficile and other spore-forming bacterial pathogens

17.00 – 17.30 Luiz Pedro Carvalho (Crick Institute, UK)
Mechanistic studies of antibiotic-target engagement.

17.30 – 17.45 Short talk 7
17.45 – 18.00 Short talk 8

18.00 – 18.30 Georg Fritz (Univ Western Australia, Australia)
Emergent properties of the lipid II cycle trigger cell wall antibiotic resistance

18.30 – 19.00 David Sychantha (McMaster Univ, Canada)
New glycopeptide antibiotics that block cell wall synthesis and degradation

20.00 Cocktail and Gala Diner

DAY 3

Day 3
Wednesday, September 20th, 2023

Session 5. Regulating the Wall (Chair: Orietta Massidda, Univ Trento, Italy)

09.00 – 09.30 Dennis Claessen (Leiden Univ, The Netherlands)
Regulation of cell wall formation in filamentous actinobacteria under hyperosmotic stress conditions

09.30 – 10.00 Beate Henrichfreise (Univ Bonn, Germany)
Tightly controlled – the septal peptidoglycan ring in Chlamydia

10.00 – 10.15 Short talk 9
10.15 – 10.30 Short talk 10

10.30 Coffee break & Posters

11.00 – 11.30 Malcolm Winkler (Univ Indiana, USA)
Regulation of peptidoglycan synthesis at the pathway and protein interaction levels in ovoid-shaped Streptococcus pneumoniae

11.30 – 12.00 Sven Halbedel (Robert Koch Institute, Germany)
Regulation of Listeria monoctyogenes peptidoglycan biosynthesis by an essential protein phosphorylation

12.30 Lunch

Afternoon break
15.00 – 16.30 Coffee & Posters

Session 6. Coordinating the Wall (with the cell cycle) (Chair: David Roper, Univ Warwick, UK)

16.30 – 17.00 Natalia Luisa Hiller (Carnagie Mellon, Univ, USA)
Much more than a Wall: The role of the Gram-Positive peptidoglycan in stress response

17.00 – 17.30 Pamela Brown (Univ Missouri, USA)
PBP1a is required for rod-shape and polar elongation in Rhizobiales

17.30 – 17.45 Short talk 11
17.45 – 18.00 Short talk 12

18.00 – 18.30 Seamus Holden (Univ Warwick, UK)
Elucidating the role of the bacterial cytoskeleton in cell division: FtsZ treadmilling drives cell division by promoting Z-ring condensation and septal constriction initiation

18.30 – 19.00 Allister Crow (Univ Warwick, UK)
Structural basis for peptidoglycan hydrolase activation during bacterial cell division

19.00 Closing of the meeting and selection of the next venue