Annual Conference 2017 – poster prize winners

27 April 2017

This year’s Annual Conference saw the biggest poster exhibition yet, with over 600 abstracts selected by the Society’s Divisions. The posters provided an excellent opportunity for microbiologists to showcase scientific research that complemented sessions running each day. This year the Microbiology Society introduced a number of poster prizes to recognise delegates who demonstrated excellent presentation skills or highlighted novel research.

All posters were entered into the People’s Choice Poster Prize, judged by other delegates at the Annual Conference. This year’s winner was Emma Wroblewski, from the University of Leeds, whose poster ‘Rewriting Nature's ssRNA Viral Assembly Manual’ was well regarded for its unique design and excellent science.

All posters were also entered into the Principal Investigator Poster Prize. This Prize recognised innovative or novel work, as judged by members of the Society’s Divisions, Council and Committees. The winners of the Principal Investigator Poster Prize were:

Priyanka More, Edge Hill University; Prerna Vohra, The Roslin Institute; Ecco Staller, Imperial College London; and Marcin Fraczek, University of Manchester.

The Early Career Microbiologists’ Forum Poster Prize recognised promising presenters from the Society’s Early Career Microbiologists’ (ECM) Forum. The ECM Forum Committee awarded the prize to two delegates: Michael Norman, University of East Anglia, for his poster ‘Flavocytochrome at the microbe-mineral interface of Shewanella oneidensis under mineral respiring conditions’; and Ana da Silva, University of Nottingham, for her work ‘Understanding the ecology and evolution of polymicrobial wound infections.’

The Microbiology Society Journals’ ‘Most Promising Science’ Prize was awarded to researchers presenting compelling or novel research within the subject areas of the Society journals. The journal Editors awarded prizes to:

Journal of General Virology

Gareth Shimmon, The Pirbright Institute; Claire Ham, NIBSC; Mosaab Elsheikh, University of Nottingham; Amy Barker, University of Leeds; Joseph Lattimer, University of Leeds; Harry Wilson, King's College London; and Yunhui Zhuang, University of Cambridge.

Microbial Genomics

Rodrigo Bacigalupe, The Roslin Institute.

Microbiology

Naji Bassil, University of Manchester; Michael Norman, University of East Anglia; Marie-Louise Francis, University of Oxford; Axel B. Janssen, University Medical Center Utrecht; Lizeth Lacharme-Lora, University of Liverpool; Yasir Alabdali, University of Sheffield; Théophile Grébert, Sorbonne University; Philip Weyrauch, University of Duisburg-Essen; Courtney Kousser, University of Birmingham; Shu-Sin Chng, National University of Singapore; and Nathaniel Holman, University of York.

Congratulations to all of the winners who have been invited to present their work again at our Annual Society Showcase and Annual General Meeting in September.