Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Pre-meeting workshop Using R to Analyze and Display Microbiome Data
Presenter: Blake Hanson, University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston
9:30-9:45 Introduction and Setup
Topics:
- Brief overview of microbiome data structures
- Loading data into R
- Data pre-processing
- Review of key packages
9:45-10:15 Describing the Microbiome – Alpha Diversity
Topics:
- Summarizing composition by taxonomy level
- Alpha diversity metrics
- Visualizing community composition
10:15-10:55 Comparing Samples – Beta Diversity and Ordination
Topics:
- Distance Metrics
- Ordination Methods
- Adding metadata and estimating confidence
10:55-11:05 Break
11:05-11:40 Co-Occurrence and Network Visualizations
Topics:
- Detecting and visualizing microbiome associations
- Correlation methods
- Graph-based visualization
11:40-12:10 Linking microbiome to metadata
Topics:
- Constrained ordination
- Correlation heatmaps
12:10-12:30 Wrap-up and discussion
Day 1 – Wednesday, January 14, 2026
Drug Discovery and Mechanisms of Resistance
7:45-9:00 Registration
8:00-8:50 Career Mentoring Breakfast. Career Panel for International Scholars: from K99 to Professor
Natasha Kirienko, PhD
Rice University, Houston, TX
Cesar A. Arias, MD, PhD
Houston Methodist Research Institute and Weill Cornell Medical College, Houston, TX
Alex Kang, PhD
Houston Methodist Research Institute
Chetna Dureja, PhD
Texas A&M Health Science Center, Houston
9:00-9:05 Welcome
Natasha Kirienko, PhD
Rice University, Houston, TX
Cesar A. Arias, MD, PhD
Houston Methodist Research Institute and Weill Cornell Medical College, Houston, TX
Suzanne Tomlinson, PhD, MBA
Gulf Coast Consortia
Session 1 Microbiome and microbe-microbe interactions in AMR
Conveners: Anna Konovalova
9:05-9:25 Presentation title TBA
Diana Proctor, PhD
University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston
9:25-9:45 Exploiting Strain Richness Limits for Targeted Alteration of the gut Microbiome
Jeremiah Faith, PhD
Mount Sinai / Icahn Genomics Institute, New York, NY
9:45-10:05 Protein Folding Elements Enable Genetic Innovation in Antibiotic Resistance Genes
Despoina Mavridou, PhD
University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston
10:05-10:35 Vendor Show and Networking-Pre-function and Event Hall
Session 2 T32 Trainee Symposium: Texas Medical Center Training Program on Antimicrobial Resistance (TP-AMR), MBID, TIPS
Convenors: TBD
10:35-10:50 Presentation title TBA
Scott Bray, Baylor College of Medicine
AMR Trainee
10:50-11:05 Presentation title TBA
Thanh Le, University of Houston
AMR Trainee
11:05-11:20 Presentation title TBA
Teresa Sullivan, University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston
MBID Trainee
Session 3 Barbara E. Murray Keynote Lecture
11:20-11:25 Jennifer Walker – Introduction of the Keynote speaker
11:25-12:00 Molecular Blueprint of UTI Pathogenesis and application to Antibiotic-Sparing Therapeutics
Scott Hultgren, PhD
Washington University
12:00-12:30 Rapid Fire talks (Six 5-min talks)
12:30-2:15 Lunch/Poster Session-Event Hall
12:30-1:15 Lunch
1:15-2:15 Poster Session, Poster #s 1-30
2:15-2:30 Poster removal and return to the auditorium
Session 4 Phages and phage-like treatments against MDR bacteria
Conveners: Natasha Kirienko & TBD
2:30-2:50 Presentation title TBA
Anthony Maresso, PhD
Baylor College of Medicine
2:50-3:10 Phages Facilitate Drug Penetration
Lanying Zeng, PhD
Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
3:10-3:30 Presentation title TBA
Dean Scholl, PhD
Pylum Biosciences, San Carlos ,CA
3:30-3:50 Development of R Pyocins as a Treatment for Pseudomonas aeruginosa Infections
Natasha Kirienko, PhD
Rice University, Houston, TX
3:50-4:15 Networking Break
Session 5 Selected Presentations (3×15-min talks selected from abstracts)
Conveners: Sam Shelburne, MD, PhD, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
Chetna Dureja, PhD, Texas A&M Health, Houston, TX
4:15-4:30 Selected presentations
4:30-4:45 Selected presentation
4:45-5:00 Selected presentation
5:00-6:00 Reception & Networking
Day 2 – Thursday, January 15, 2026
Translational and Clinical Aspects of Antibiotic Resistance
7:45-9:00 Registration
8:00-8:50 Career Mentoring Breakfast: Scientific Communications on Social Media
Session 6 AMR & Pediatrics
Conveners: Chase McNeil
9:00-9:20 Performance of the Vitek Reveal and Accelerate Pheno Systems for Rapid Phenotypic Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing of Gram-Negative Bacilli Directly from Blood Cultures
Jim Dunn, PhD, D(ABMM)
Texas Children’s Hospital/Baylor College of Medicine
9:20-9:40 Shifting Antimicrobial Susceptibility In Gram Positive Infections in Children
Chase McNeil, MD
Texas Children’s, Houston, TX
9:40-10:00 Before and After the Bottleneck – Resistance to Second-Line Antimicrobials in Pediatric Group A Streptococcal Infections in Houston, TX, from 2013-2023
Anthony Flores, MD, MPH, PhD
Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN
10:00-10:30 Vendor Show and Networking-Pre-function and Event Hall
Session 7 Trainee Symposium
Convenors: TBD
10:30-10:45 Presentation title TBA
Katherine Wozniak, Baylor College of Medicine
AMR Trainee
10:45-11:00 Presentation title TBA
Michael Lopez, Baylor College of Medicine
TIPS Trainee
11:00-11:15 Presentation title TBA
Bishnu Joshi, Baylor College of Medicine
AMR Scholar
11:20-11:25 Keynote Lecture introduction
11:25-12:00 Keynote Lecture
TBA
Sara Cosgrove, MD
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
12:00-12:30 Rapid Fire talks (Six 5-min talks)
12:30-2:15 Lunch/Poster Session-Event Hall
12:30-1:15 Lunch
1:15-2:15 Poster Session, Poster #s 31-60
2:15-2:30 Poster removal and return to the auditorium
Session 8
Conveners: Cesar A. Arias, MD, PhD, Houston Methodist Research Institute and Weill Cornell Medical College, Houston, TX
2:30-3:30 Challenging Clinical Cases in Antimicrobial Resistance
Panel of ~3 participants, TBD
3:30-3:55 Break
Session 9 Drug discovery in AMR
Conveners: Taryn Eubank, PharmD, University of Houston
Kara Hood, PhD, Houston Methodist Research Institute
3:55-4:15 Identification of a Structurally Novel Penicillin-Binding Protein Transglycosylase Inhibitor with Broad Spectrum Activity
Holly Sutterlin, PhD
Prokaryotics, Union, NJ
4:15-4:35 Presentation title TBA
Carolyn Cannon, MD, PhD
Texas A&M University
4:35-4:55 From Worms to Algorithms: Accelerating Antimicrobial Discovery with AI and Whole-Animal Screens
Eleftherios Mylonakis, MD, PhD, FIDSA,
Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX
4:55-5:15 Identifying Inhibitors of Antibiotic Resistance Enzymes Using DNA-Encoded Chemical Libraries
Timothy Palzkill, PhD
Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
Day 3-Friday, January 16, 2026
Surveillance & Stewardship
7:45-9:00 Registration
8:00-8:50 Career Mentoring Breakfast: Leadership and Outreach: Careers in Microbiology
Heidi Kaplan, PhD, University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston
Terri Koehler, PhD, University of Texas Health Science Center
Welcome
9:00 Ed Septimus, MD, Harvard Medical School
Session 10 Keynote Speaker
9:00-9:30 Antimicrobial Resistance: the Silent Global Threat
Denise Cardo, MD
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Session 11 Sepsis Symposium
Convenor: Max Adelman, MD
9:30-9:55 Presentation title TBA
Donald Yealy, MD
Univ. of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences
9:55-10:20 Next-Generation Sepsis Quality Measures: Moving Beyond Bundle Compliance
Chanu Rhee, MD, MPH
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
10:20-10:50 Vendor Show and Networking
10:50-11:15 Presentation title TBA
Kathleen Chiotos, MD, MSCE
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
11:15-11:35 Panel Discussion
11:35-12:00 Not all that Complicated: the 2025 IDSA Guidelines for Complicated UTI
Barbara Trautner, MD, PhD,
Washington University at St Louis, St Louis, MO
12:00-12:30 Rapid Fire talks (Six 5-min talks)
12:30-2:15 Lunch/Poster Session-Event Hall
12:30-1:15 Lunch
1:15-2:15 Poster Session, Poster #s 61-100
2:15-2:30 Poster removal and return to the auditorium
Session 12 Vaccination Symposium
Convenor: Julie Boom, MD
2:30-2:55 Presentation title TBA
Hana El Sahly, MD
Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
2:55-3:20 Presentation title TBA
Robert Atmar, MD
Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
3:20-3:45 Presentation title TBA
Mary Healy, MD
Texas Children’s Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
3:45-4:00 Panel Discussion
4:00-4:15 Networking Break
Session 13
Convenor: Shivani Patel, PhD
4:15-4:40 Antifungal Resistance Trends and Treatment
Wesley Hoffman, PharmD
Houston Methodist Research Institute
4:40-5:00 ID Watch: Most Influential Publications of 2025
Ed Septimus, MD
5:00 Wrap Up
5:15-6:30 AMR Scholars get together at Valhalla