BISMiS Live

BISMiS Live is our monthly seminar series, held online and scheduled for the third Saturday of each month, starting March 2021. The aim of the series is to reach out to microbiology students and early career scientists with an interest in microbial ecology and systematics. These interactive sessions with expert scientists from across the globe will foster interest in microbial systematics and the diversity and ecology of microbes in our world.

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Archived Sessions

2021 2022 2023 2024 2025

BISMiS Live - 2026

Inaugural Session - February 21, 2026

Speaker: Prof. William Whitman, Department of Microbiology, University of Georgia

Title of the Talk: Prokaryotic Nomenclature in 2050

Biosketch: William ‘Barny’ Whitman received his PhD in microbiology from The University of Texas in Austin in the laboratory of F. Robert Tabita. His training was completed at the University of Illinois in Urbana in the laboratory of Ralph S. Wolfe. When he started his own laboratory at the University of Georgia in 1982, he initially focused on developing genetic systems in the methanogenic archaeon Methanococcus as well the pathway of autotrophic CO2 assimilation. Since then, his research has focused on the physiology, systematics and ecology of environmentally important microorganisms. He is currently an Emeritus Professor at the University of Georgia where systematics has been a central part of his work. His laboratory developed one of the most popular methods for determination of the mol % G+C [Mesbah et al. 1989. Int J Sys Bacteriol 39:159-167] and helped describe more than twenty new species. From 1986-2001, he was Secretary of the International Committee on Systematics of Bacteria (ICSB) Subcommittee on the Taxonomy of Methanogenic Bacteria and coauthored its first Minimal Standards [Boone and Whitman. 1988. Int J Syst Bacteriol. 38: 212-219]. From 1995-2001, he was an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology, and in 2000 received the Bergey’s Award from the Bergey’s Manual Trust. In 2006, he joined the Bergey’s Manual Trust and became the Supervising Editor of the Manual, a post in which he still serves. His work as an editor of Bergey’s Manual on the Systematics of Archaea and Bacteria has strongly informed his opinions on prokaryotic systematics. From 2014-2020, he served as Treasurer and member of the Executive Board of the ICSP. Since 2022, he served on the Executive Board of the Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes Described from Sequence Data (SeqCode) Committee. He has also been the Treasurer of Bergey’s International Society for Microbial Systematics (BISMiS) since its founding, which is strange being that he is not very political.

Recorded Session: Watch Here

52nd Session - March 21, 2026: Young Scholar Forum

Speaker: Dr Hongyan Wang, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Title of the Talk: Characterization of a novel halotolerant Dehalogenimonas species for high-salinity organohalide respiration

Biosketch: Hongyan Wang received her PhD in microbiology from the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in 2025. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the same institute. Her doctoral research focused on anaerobic environmental microorganisms, leading to the isolation and functional characterization of a novel halotolerant organohalide-respiring bacterium, Dehalogenimonas loeffleri sp. nov. (strain W). This microorganism demonstrates the ability to dechlorinate 1,2-dichloroethane (1,2-DCA) to ethene under high-salinity conditions (≥5.1% NaCl, w/v), a capability attributed to the synthesis of compatible solutes and the encoding of a salt-tolerant reductive dehalogenase (DdeA). Her research findings have been published in journals such as the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology (IJSEM), Environmental Science & Technology, and Microbiology Resource Announcements. These contributions have advanced the understanding of novel organohalide-respiring bacteria (OHRB) lineages in extreme environments and revealed the functional adaptation mechanisms of OHRB in high-salinity habitats.

Speaker: Dr Zhenxing Xu, Shandong University

Title of the Talk: Target isolation and identification of Geobacteraceae with potentials in soil nitrogen maintenance

Biosketch: Zhenxing Xu received his PhD in Applied Biological Chemistry from the University of Tokyo and then worked as a JSPS Foreign Special Research Fellow at the University of Tokyo until 2023. He is currently working as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Marine College, Shandong University, China. He has published more than 20 SCI papers in Microbiome, mBio and other international journals in microbiology and related fields. His research mainly focuses on mining unculturable microbial resources in marine sediments, and their roles in element cycling. He was awarded the JSPS Foreign Special Research Fellowship in 2021 and currently hosts four research projects, including those funded by the NSFC, the Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation, and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation. He also serves as a reviewer for more than 10 international journals.

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