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SUMMARY:Plenary Lecture 16: Collective Functionality Through Microbial Ind
 ividuality - Ackermann\, M (ETH Zrich)
DTSTART:20140912T102500Z
DTEND:20140912T105500Z
UID:TALK54195@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Mustapha Amrani
DESCRIPTION:According to the conventional view\, the properties of an orga
 nism are a product of nature and nurture - of its genes and the environmen
 t it lives in. Recent experiments with unicellular organisms have challeng
 ed this view: genetically individuals living in homogeneous laboratory env
 ironments can have markedly different properties\, and express different s
 ets of genes. We are interested in the functional consequences of this var
 iation in bacteria: is phenotypic heterogeneity sometimes beneficial\, and
  does it provide microbes with new functionality in their natural environm
 ent? I will first present results that suggest that\, for the majority of 
 the genes in a bacterial genome\, natural selection acts to reduce phenoty
 pic variation. Then\, I will present a few exception to this rule\, and di
 scuss how phenotypic variation in clonal populations of bacteria can promo
 te interactions between individuals\, lead to the division of labor\, and 
 allow clonal groups of bacteria to cope with envi ronmental uncertainty. F
 inally\, I will present recent results that indicate that phenotypic heter
 ogeneity in bacterial populations does not only arise through individual m
 olecular decisions in single cells\, but is also shaped by interactions be
 tween cells that impact the expression of their phenotype. The main conclu
 sion from this work is that microbial individuality can provide groups of 
 organisms with collective functionality.\n
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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