Conference Program
June 8-10, 2026 | Oak Island Resort, NS
- Mon, June 8
- Tue, June 9
- Wed, June 10
Breakfast & Registration
Introduction
Waste not want not: extracting new information from old data
Sean Gibbons Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, Washington
Adaptation, urbanization, and the microbiome: shifts in symbiont communities of a rapidly expanding soapberry bug
David Angelini Colby College, Waterville, Maine
Break
How shipwrecks shape seabed microbiomes, and why it matters
Leila J. Hamdan University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi
Unlocking New Insights in Microbiome Research Through Innovation
Delphine Douillet Illumina
Diversity, abundance, and prevalence of infant gut bifidobacteria across diverse populations and feeding practices
Guilherme Fahur Bottino Wellesley College & Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Massachusetts
Characterizing metagenomic dark matter reveals distinct sequence signatures across marine microbial communities
Jorge Rojas-Vargas Western University, London, Ontario
Lunch
Microbiome in Maternal and Child Health: Towards precision-based therapies
John Parkinson SickKids, Toronto, Ontario
An Integrated Data Analysis Toolset for Investigating Microbial Community Dynamics from Environmental DNA
Paul Bjorndahl Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Beyond Community Assembly: Multi-Omics Analysis of 24-Month Spontaneous Beer Fermentations Reveals Metabolite Heterogeneity Driven by Early Batch and Seasonal Variations
Shane Carey University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta
Break
OAE in a bottle: Insights into diatoms’ biomass increased and bacterial shifts – a 19-day mesocosm study
Fanny Fronton Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Metagenome Profiling Choices Influence Diversity Estimates and Conclusions in Microbiome Studies
Jonathan Rondeau-Leclaire Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec
Characterizing the impact of River Enhanced Alkalinity (RAE) on the water and sediment microbial communities in a Nova Scotian river
Maggie Hosmer Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Gene prediction accuracy remains unsatisfactory for divergent eukaryote
Jason D. Shao Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Profiling microbial communities in marine harbours in Nova Scotia using automated environmental DNA sampling
Robert G Beiko Dalhousie University and Dartmouth Ocean Technologies, Inc.
Dinner
Social and Networking
Breakfast
Lessons from the frontier: host-microbe interactions in non-model systems
Isabelle Laforest-Lapointe Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec
Giant viral diversity and discovery within Nova Scotian wetlands
Charlotte I. Maclean Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
MaAsLin 3: refining and extending generalized multivariable linear models for meta-omic association discovery
Jacob T. Nearing Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts
Break
Modeling of oral microbial dysbiosis - Research and Clinical Applications
Nezar Al-Hebshi Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
QIAseq Universal Metagenome Kit
Chuck Dokken QIAGEN
From classification to confirmation: verifying taxonomic classifications by mapping metagenomic reads to reference genomes
Robyn Wright Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Investigating Host Urinary Microbiome-Uropathogenic E. Coli Interactions within a Glycosaminoglycan-integrated Mini Bioreactor Bladder Model
Kahliana Nguyen University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario
Lunch
Free Time
An In Vitro Model of Tumour Hypoxia and Macrophage-Microbiome Dynamics
Karla Valenzuela Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Evolutionary Dynamics of Nitrogen Fixation in Marine Thalassolituus
Soma Sardar Barawi Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Exploring the microbiome of broiler chickens for antibiotic-alternatives to enteric disease management
Rachel Lynn Theriault SickKids Research Institute, Toronto, Ontario
Modeling fecal-periurethral contamination to evaluate engineered probiotic E. coli Nissle 1917 for urinary tract infections in women
Grace Davis University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario
Functional and dietary characterization of metagenome-assembled genomes in paediatric Crohn’s disease following nutritional therapy
Abbey Saunders Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Dinner
Social and Networking
Breakfast
The causes and fitness consequences of gut microbiome variation in Sable Island feral horses
Mason Stothart Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources, Kentville, Nova Scotia
Temporary discharge of combined untreated wastewater-stormwater and it's impact on the virome of a marine harbour
Nicole Allward Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Unveiling protist-bacteria interactions through computational metabolic modeling
Yami Ommar Arizmendi Cardenas University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario
Break
Metagenomic and metapangenomic approaches to quantify drivers of phyllosphere Methylobacterium diversity
Steven Kembel Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, Quebec
One Extraction, Two Microbiome Dimensions: An Integrated Method for the Joint Study of the Agricultural Soil Virome and Microbiome
Abdonaser Poursalavati Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec
When Microbiome Function Is Not in the Individual Microbes: The Role of Interaction Structure in Community Function
Joseph P. Bielawski Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
