NZMS Annual Conference 2017 20-23 November, AUT, Auckland PROGRAMME & ABSTRACTS MAJOR SPONSORS: WELCOME Welcome to the 2017 annual meeting of the New Zealand Microbiological Society. This year the theme of the NZ Microbiological Society (NZMS) conference is, “Our well-being and our microbes”. We are highlighting the dependence of our economy on maintaining and developing healthy microbial interactions while minimising diseases of concern for humans, livestock and plants. This conference covers the diverse field of microbiology and its disciplines including agricultural, environmental, food, medical and biotechnology sectors that rely on microbial knowledge, management and products. As our biggest city, Auckland and the surrounding regions has something for everyone, from hot springs to harbours, whale-watching to wine-tasting, mountains to museums and we look forward to hosting your stay here. CONFERENCE COMMITTEE Conference Chairs Gavin Lear (University of Auckland) | [email protected] Brent Seale (Auckland University of Technology) | [email protected] Organising Committee Steve Flint (Massey University) Kim Handley (University of Auckland) Heather Hendrickson (Massey University) Syrie Hermans – Student Representative (University of Auckland) Thomas Proft (University of Auckland) Mike Taylor (University of Auckland) Bevan Weir (Landcare Research) Weiqin Zhuang (University of Auckland) Rosemary Hancock (événements Limited) Conference Manager | [email protected] Lauren Williams (Auckland University of Technology) Event Co-ordinator WHILE AT THE CONFERENCE… o Registration desk contact phone number: Rosemary, ph 021 217 8298 o Please wear your name label to all conference sessions and social functions. These badges identify you as a NZMS conference participant. The venue is a public space and you may be asked to leave the catering areas if we cannot identify you! o Please take note of the location of the exits in all conference rooms and in your accommodation. Please vacate the building immediately should the alarms sound or when directed to do so by a safety warden. o Please ask at registration for the free Wi-Fi password o Please do not leave personal belongings unattended at any time. If you require temporary storage please ask at the registration desk. o There are no refunds for non-attendance at sessions or social functions. CONTENTS Page Plenary Speakers – List and biographies 4 Invited Speakers –List 6 Sponsors 7 Programme 8 Student Oral Competition List 15 Poster Lists 16 ABSTRACTS Plenary & Invited 19 Concurrent Sessions 27 Posters 72 PLENARY SPEAKERS Dr David Bourne | Molecular Microbial Ecology | Australian Institute of Marine Science David is a Senior Lecturer at James Cook University and a Principal Research Scientists at the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). His teaching and research is focused on the biology of coral reefs and the organisms that reside within these ecosystems. His training is in the area of molecular microbial ecology with his research focused on investigation of microbial diversity, structure and function in complex ecosystems. His research is divided essentially into two areas, the first investigating the normal microbial communities associated with corals and their functional roles in maintaining coral fitness. The second research focus is to elucidate pathogens and mechanism of disease onset in corals and the implications this has on a stressed reef ecosystem in light of climate change being a major driver of coral reef degradation. Current active projects combine use of amplicon sequencing, metagenomic sequencing and transcriptomic sequencing approaches with advance imaging and chemical analyses to address coral holobiont and coral disease questions. He is also actively engaged in citizen science programs, currently running an EarthWatch project assessing the recovery of reefs around Orpheus Island on the GBR. Prof. James Paton | Infectious Disease/Immunology | University of Adelaide, Australia James Paton obtained his PhD from the Department of Biochemistry, University of Adelaide, Australia in 1979, and spent 20 years at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Adelaide, where he was Head of the Molecular Microbiology Unit. He took up the Chair of Microbiology at the University of Adelaide in 2000. In 2007, he was awarded one of the inaugural NHMRC Australia Fellowships, and was elected as a Fellow to the Australian Academy of Science in 2013. He is currently a NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow and Director of the University of Adelaide’s Research Centre for Infectious Diseases. For 35 years his research has been focused on the fundamental molecular events involved in the interactions between pathogenic bacteria and their hosts, with particular reference to Streptococcus pneumoniae. Early studies focused on identification and characterization of pneumococcal virulence proteins and investigation of their potential as non-serotype-dependent vaccine antigens. More recently, he has been investigating the influence of the host microenvironment on pneumococcal gene expression, and the impact of genetic diversity on virulence profile. Other research interests include Shiga toxigenic E. coli infections and the properties and applications of bacterial AB5 toxins. To date, he has published over 355 scientific papers and book chapters, which collectively have attracted over 23,500 citations. Colin Murrell University of East Anglia, UK Prof. Colin Murrell | Environmental Microbiology | Current International Society for Microbial Ecology (ISME) president, University of East Anglia, UK Colin Murrell is Professor in Environmental Microbiology at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK and Director of the Earth and Life Systems Alliance (www.elsa.ac.uk) on the Norwich Research Park. His research encompasses physiology, biochemistry, molecular genetics, biotechnology and molecular ecology of bacteria that grow on methane and other C1 compounds, and the bacterial metabolism of the climate active gas isoprene for which he was recently awarded an ERC Advanced grant. His research over the past 35 years has resulted in ~300 publications and six edited books. Colin is President of the International Society for Microbial Ecology, a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation and Member of the European Academy of Microbiology. He serves on the Editorial Boards of Environmental Microbiology and The ISME Journal, and has Chaired Gordon Research Conferences on C1 Metabolism and Applied and Environmental Microbiology. For more information, see: www.jcmurrell.co.uk Prof. Emma Allen-Vercoe | Human Microbiome | University of Guelph, Canada Emma obtained her BSc (Hons) in biochemistry in 1993, and her PhD in molecular microbiology in 1999. She has worked with a number of prominent pathogens during her graduate and postgraduate training, including Salmonella enterica, enterohemorrhagic E.coli and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In 2001 she moved from the UK to Canada to undertake training in cell biology. In 2006, Emma joined the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary, choosing to study the microbes of the human gut, at that time an emerging area of interest. Specifically, she developed a model gut system (dubbed ‘Robogut’) to emulate the conditions of the human gut and allow communities of microbes to grow together, as they do naturally. Emma moved her lab to the University of Guelph in 2007, and currently runs a lab of 11 people Prof. Martin Wiedmann | Food Microbiology/Safety | Cornell University, USA Martin received a veterinary degree and a doctorate in Veterinary Medicine from the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich in 1992 and 1994, and a Ph.D. in Food Science from Cornell in 1997. He currently is the Gellert Family Professor of Food Safety at Cornell. His research interests focus on farm-to-table microbial food quality and food safety and the application of molecular tools to study the biology and transmission of foodborne pathogens and spoilage organisms. His team has published > 300 peer reviewed publications, which have been cited >10,000 times. He was a member of the Listeria Outbreak Working Group, which was honored by a USDA Secretary’s Award for Superior Service in 2000. He also received the Young Scholars award from the American Dairy Science Association in 2002, the Samuel Cate Prescott Award from Institute of Food Technologists’ in 2003, the International Life Science Institute North America Future Leaders Award in 2004, and the American Meat Institute Foundation Scientific Achievement Award in 2011. He is a fellow of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM), and a member of the International Academy of Food Science and Technology. For more information, see: https://foodscience.cals.cornell.edu/people/martin-wiedmann Prof. Joan W. Bennett | Fungal Genetics | Rutgers University USA Joan W. Bennett is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Plant Biology at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA. She is trained as a fungal geneticist and during much of her career studied the genetics, biosynthesis and molecular biology of aflatoxin production, helping to establish the paradigm that fungal secondary metabolite genes are clustered. In recent years her focus has been on the physiological effects of fungal volatile organic compounds (VOCs) using genetic models. Professor Bennett is a past president of both the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology and the American Society