Progress 02/01/24 to 01/31/25

Outputs
Target Audience:The primary goal for the Congree on Gastrointestinal Function (CGIF) is to provide a forum for the presentation of the latest findings in the definition and management of gastrointestinal ecosystems, in pursuit of more efficient and environmentally friendly food animal production systems. It should be noted that many of the Congress attendees from North America are likely to have, or have been, funded by the former Animal Growth and Development study section of NRI-CGP, the successor National Institute for Food and Agriculture - Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grants program (NIFA-AFRI), or currently work for USDA-ARS. In other words, the Congress is a primary venue for the dissemination of the latest results arising from programs supported by USDA and NIFA-AFRI. We are also seeking to promote a greater scientific exchange between North American scientists in the biomedical and agricultural sciences, to emphasize the scale of advances being made in the former, while establishing the validity and relevance of similar studies with domesticated animal and poultry species to a broader audience. Simply stated, there is clear evidence that when the scientists working with food producing animals and the biomedical sciences are brought together, there is a mutually beneficial scholarly discourse and exchange of research methodologies and strategies, which advances progress in both areas. The greater interests and challenges facing human, and animal, health and well-being are most likely to be effectively addressed through working together, and developing interdisciplinary frameworks; in our instance, for the comparative and functional examination of the gastrointestinal ecosystems. For these reasons, we believe CGIF is an excellent venue to foster exciting and new collaborative activities of direct relevance to US agriculture,as well as all US citizens, the ultimate consumer of US agricultural products. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Conference Grantonly. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?CGIF 2024 has a printed program. All abstracts for the meeting are archived on the CGIF website. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Following the one-year extension and a virtual meeting in April 2022 due to the Covid pandemic, CGIF returned to its traditional in-person meeting format on April 8-10, 2024. For the first time in its history the meeting was held outside Chicago and instead was hosted on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. This was based on the cost of hiring meeting space as well as hotel and other meeting expenses in Chicago.Thus, we planned and executed a highly successful in person conference that was held on April 8-10, 2024 to celebrate our 36thCongress and 73rdAnniversary. As stated, this was held on the campus of the University of Illinois using the Beckman Institute for the first two days of the meeting with the third day hosted by NCSA, both on the Engineering campus and close to the Hampton Inn where we reserved a block of rooms at a good price for Conference attendees. Technical support for the Conference was provided by FASS who also handle our financial affairs. The Congress comprised almost three full days of deliberations and was attended by 130 delegates. We followed the highly successful format that has been developed by starting the conference with a themed special session on Monday morning entitledMaximizing the impact of next generation approacheswith additional invited speakers and chaired by Phil Pope (Australia). The theme was based on the theme of rapid progress in third generation technologies as well as high throughput cultivation-based approaches, but many longstanding knowledge gaps in microbial biology still elude us. This session aimed to present case studies and discussion regarding how each new technology can be better coupled to meaningful experimental frame works that could help to guide research efforts to overcome technical shortcomings and answer both new- and old-school biological problems and mysteries. Three speakers covered topics that ranged from "Inter-twining plasmids, microbial interactions and adaptations to gut environments by Itzhik Mizrahi", "Contributions of dietary fiber and mucin-degrading bacteria to inflammatory bowel disease by Eric Martens", and "Microbial microproteins as mediators of microbe-microbe and microbe-host communication and warfare by Amy Bhatt". We were fortunate to have a partial solar eclipse and featured a guest speaker from the Department of Astronomy, Prof Athol Kemble, to explain the phenomenon followed by viewing the eclipse through safety glasses purchased by the Conference and distributed to viewers. This was followed by the traditional Monday afternoon Opening session featuring three invited speakers each giving an invited plenary presentation. The traditional Marvin P. Bryant Memorial Lecture was presented by Dr Ed Bayer, an emeritus professor from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel with the title "Cellulosome-producing bacteria from the environment from the rumen and human-gut microbiomes". This was preceded by two further invited talks "The ying and the yang of microbiome signatures in early life by Lindsay Hall" and "Journey through time: unraveling the evolution of the human gut microbiome by Alecs Kostic". This was followed by two days featuring 4 sessions each anchored by an invited plenary speaker with supporting oral presentations selected from contributed abstracts. The total number of podium presentations was 33, with 8 invited presentations and 25 selected podium presentations. A novel feature of the meeting was a session devoted toFire Poster Pitchtalks. During this session 15 selected poster presenters were able to captivate the audience with a 2-3-minute "fire talk" and direct attendees to their posters for deeper discussion during the dedicated poster session that followed. Poster sessions were held on Monday after the Bryant Memorial Lecture together with an informal mixer and on Tuesday before the Social Function. The six best posters (3 oral podium talks and 3 posters) by graduate students and Postdoctoral research associates were judged and the winners were each awarded a $250 prize. A business meeting of the delegates and Board of CGIF was held during the lunch break on Tuesday. The social event was held at nearby Riggs Brewery and featured a Jazz quintet as well as two food trucks to accompany the evening function. Without substantial support from the NIFA Animal Growth and Lactation (A1221) program this event would have been difficult to finance since the travel costs plus an honorarium for the invited speakers account for a substantial portion of this award together with auditorium rental costs. In addition, we cover associated costs incurred in planning and holding the Conference.

Publications