SPEAKER 1

Dr. Shi has been in the microbiology, particularly oral microbiology field for over 20 years. His research interests range from studying individual oral pathogens on a molecular level to the investigation of their behavior in complex communities; from basic to translational research and clinical applications. He has extensive knowledge and expertise in oral microbial community analysis, bacterial genetic, bacterial interspecies interaction and microbiome research. His laboratory currently has 3 active R01s from NIDCR, aiming to use multidisciplinary approaches to study oral microbial pathogenesis with a specific focus on inter-species interaction, signal transduction, microbial biofilm and microbial ecology.  In addition, they are actively developing the next generation of diagnostic and therapeutic tools against oral microbial infections.

SPEAKER 2

Yang-Yu Liu is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and an Associate Scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). He received his Ph.D. in Physics from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009, with thesis research focusing on phase transitions in disordered magnets. After that, he held positions as Postdoctoral Research Associate and then Research Assistant Professor in the Center for Complex Network Research at Northeastern University, before he joined HMS and BWH in 2013. The primary goal of his postdoctoral research has been to combine tools from control theory, network science and statistical physics to address fundamental questions pertaining to the control of complex networks. His current research efforts focus on the study of human microbiome from the community ecology, dynamic systems and control theory perspectives.

SPEAKER 3

Dr. Xinhua Chen received his bachelor degree in biology from Peking University, and PhD in biochemistry from the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. He received his postdoctoral training at BIDMC and MGH studying probiotic mechanisms and gut infections.  Dr. Chen is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine at BIDMC in the Division of Gastroenterology. His research focuses on epithelial and vascular barrier function in gut infections, particularly Clostridium difficile infection (CDI). His long-term goal is to understand the pathogenesis of CDI and develop non-antibiotic alternative therapies (including probiotic approaches) against this clinically important disease.

MODERATOR

Dr. Min Dong received his B.S. degree from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 1997 and Ph.D. degree in neuroscience from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2004. He continued his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Edwin Chapman at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Dr. Dong established his independent lab in 2009 at the New England Primate Research Center of Harvard Medical School. He later joined Dept. of Urology at Boston Children’s Hospital in 2015. His research Interests including bacterial toxins, botulinum neurotoxin, microbiome, synaptic vesicles, membrane trafficking, clostridium difficile, protein engineering, protein therapeutics.