Evolution, cooperation, and drug resistance

Keynote talks, Tuesday 9th July:

Anne-Florence Bitbol – Impact of population spatial structure on mutant fixation, from models on graphs to the gut (11:00-12:00)

Microbial populations often have complex spatial structures, with homogeneous competition holding only at a local scale. Population structure can strongly impact evolution, in particular by affecting the fixation probability of mutants.I will first discuss a general model for describing structured populations on graphs. I will show that by tuning migration asymmetry in the rare migration regime, the star graph transitions from amplifying to suppressing natural selection. Next, I will discuss the impact of increasing migration rates. In particular, I will show that suppression of selection is pervasive in the regime of frequent migrations.

Then I will show that the specific structure of the gut, with hydrodynamics and gradients of food and bacterial concentrations, can increase the fixation probability of neutral mutants. Our results can be rationalized by introducing an active population, which consists of those bacteria that are actively consuming food and dividing. Thus, the specific environment of the gut enhances neutral bacterial diversity.

Wenying Shou – The Evolution of Cooperative Communities (14:00-15:00)

I will discuss experimental and theoretical work on the evolution of two-species cooperative communities. Audience participation is encouraged and appreciated.

Contributed talks, Tuesday 9th July:

Hannah Lepper – Multi-serotype models of mechanisms of coexistence of antibiotic resistant strains and dynamics of Streptococcus pneumoniae following vaccine introduction (12:00-12:25)

Lluís Hernández-Navarro – Eco-evolutionary dynamics of cooperative antimicrobial resistance (12:25-12:50)

Xiaoyuan Liu – Eco-evolutionary modelling of environmentally triggered sex and hibernation (15:00-15:25)

Jana Zaherddine – Stochastic models of regulation of transcription in biological cells (15:25-15:50)

Ming Liu – What makes microbial communities stable? (15:50-16:15)

Short talks, Tuesday 9th July:

Golsa Sayyar – Evolution into chaos – implications of the trade-off between transmissibility and immune evasion (16:45-17:00)

Pedro Fontanarrosa – MIMIC: A Comprehensive Python Package for Simulating, Inferring, and Predicting Microbial Community Interactions (17:00-17:15)