Last week, seven of us had the privilege of representing our lab and SDSU at the American Society for Microbiology Conference on Tuberculosis 2017 in the Big Apple, where we presented research, fostered new connections, and strengthened old ones with the international TB community. We learned a tremendous amount about the physiology and genetics of Mtb, as well as several novel and exciting methodologies for future studies on this deadly pathogen. Many in attendance took interest in the seven posters we presented, particularly our exposition of the areas of the genome frequently unresolved by Illumina “Hole” genome sequencing, which we term “blind spots”, presented by Tal Shmaya. We look forward to continuing with each of these projects as they develop into publications, and presenting our future findings at more conferences in the coming months and years!