Würzburg Life Science Seminar: Karen Maxwell & Alan Davidson

The Davidson and Maxwell labs study bacteriophages and their interactions with bacterial hosts. The Maxwell lab focuses on anti-phage defence systems and the functional characterization of the large fraction of uncharacterized genes encoded in phage genomes (“viral dark matter”), particularly in phages infecting Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Karen’s talk is titled ‘Molecular choreography of phage defence: sensing viral assembly to abort infection’. The Davidson lab studies phage assembly, anti-CRISPR proteins, and the effects of prophages on bacterial physiology and virulence, combining molecular microbiology and structural biology approaches.. Alan’s talk is titled ‘A bacterial antiviral STAND system is activated by a short conserved motif in DNA polymerases’.