The Week of Microbial Technologies was a great success
The Microbial Technologies Week was a great success thanks to the attendance of more than 100 people interested in the field and related scientific topics. The #MicroTechWeek was held on 7-11 November in Ljubljana, Slovenia, at the premises of the Jozef Stefan Institute (JSI), the leading Slovenian scientific research centre.
SURFBIO has been one of the two organising projects of the event, together with GREENER, achieving a considerable impact among experts from all over Europe from political institutions, academia and industry, as well as students and younger researchers. The goal of this event was networking between EU projects and stakeholders, sharing applications of surface and colloid biology and planning new initiatives based on microbiology technologies
The weekly conference hosted consortium meetings of both projects, as well as activities open to the public such as an industrial workshop, with European companies representatives, and a hands-on training given by international professors.
Event website: www.microtechweek.com
Watch the video summary of the week!
SURFBIO yearly meeting and GAC meeting
In the first face-to-face meeting of the SURFBIO consortium, partners presented their work and progresses related to the project objectives 📈.
On the other hand, the SURFBIO Governance Advisory Committee (GAC) meeting was planned to discuss the feasibility, organisation and services that SURFBIO Innovation Hub as Professional Association wants to offer. The aim is to connect researchers, institutions, industry and policy makers to boost the discipline of colloid biology within the field of materials science and molecular biology, taking into account the needs of society. The GAC members (from outside the consortium) will ensure the Association’s objectives are achieved.
Industrial workshop + poster session
In the industrial workshop on the objectives and applications of colloid and surface biology, the challenges and opportunities of this new emerging discipline driven by the SURFBIO project were disscused. Any researcher, student or interested person could join.
The speakers were researchers and experts in health, food, materials and environmental applications, including the colleagues from SURFBIO project.
Zala Strojin Božič, from the Department of Environmental Protection of the City of Ljubljana (Slovenia), was the first to talk with a very interesting presentation on science and societies, following by David Kocman (JSI), who talked about smart cities and how to engage citiciens in science.
In the Health applications block, speakers gave insights into the latest advances of biocolloids research, their applications in health systems, such as dental, cosmetics or drug delivery, and ways of detection. 👨🔬👩🔬 The invited speakers: dr. Bogdan Parakhonskiy -moderator- (Ghent University, Belgium), dr. Barbara Hubad (Jafral ltd., Slovenia), prof. dr. Gleb Sukhorukov (QMUL, United Kingdom), dr. Stefan Schymura (HZDR, Germany) and prof. dr. Andreas Stingl (Phornano, Austria)- DIAGONAL.
Our partner dr. María Suárez Diez moderated the Food applications block, where speakers presented from different approaches the involvement of microbes in several applications in the food industry, such as sustainable agriculture or food packaging, as well as relevant microbial interactions for the field.
👨🔬👩🔬 The invited speakers: dr. Nives Ogrinc (JSI, Slovenia), dr. Herwig Bachmann (NIZO, VU Amsterdam, Netherlands), dr. K. Mattas (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)- BioValue Project; dr. David Virant (ACIES bio, Slovenia), dr. Ivica Dimkic (University of Belgrade, Serbia), dr. Rinke van Tatenhove-Pel (TU Delft, Netherlands).
The Environment applications block of the indsutrial workshop was led by dr. Rocío Barros from ICCRAM – University of Burgos. During this session, speakers discussed different environmental applications of colloid biology. These included the use of nature-based solutions, bioremediation or bioaugmentation techniques and bio-electrochemical systems to provide solutions to environmental challenges, such as contaminants removal from water and soil, product recovery or energy generation among others.
👨🔬👩🔬 The invited speakers: Alenka Zalaznik (Limnos ltd., Slovenia), dr. Eduard Borràs (Leitat ltd., Spain) – GREENER Project H2020, dr. Nada Verdel (Fenolit d.d., Slovenia), dr. Lila Otero-Gonzalez Otero (IDENER, Spain) – BIOSYSMO Project, and Ales Lapanje (JSI, Slovenia).
Our partner dr. Stefan Scyhmura moderated the Materials science section where speakers gave an overview of colloid biology on material sciences. 🔬Topics included the study and prediction of material’s toxicology to develop safe by design nanomaterials, applications of biofilms and guidedances to manufacture nanomaterials in a sustainable way.
👨🔬👩🔬 The invited speakers: dr. Anna Gorbushina (BAM Ltd., Germany), dr. Carlos Rumbo (ICCRAM), dr. Santiago Aparicio (ICCRAM), dr. Patricia Farias (Phornano) – DIAGONAL, dr. Bogdan Parakhonskiy (Ghent University).
Last but not least, dr. Tomaž Lutman (JSI) gave the closing session on Intellectual property management and fermentation product market 👏
In addition, this industrial workshop was followed by a poster session, in which around 25 students and young researchers from several European centres presented their work on biology and materials sciences. In this session there were four winners.
📷: Sandra de la Parra (UBU) and Allwin Mabes Raj (JSI) won the Best Poster Awards + Aqib Hassan Ali Khan (UBU) and Stephan Hilpmann (picked up by Stefan Schymura, HZDR) won the Best Poster Presentation Awards.
Hands-on training
On the halfway through the #MicroTechWeek, a practical training session was carried out: “Experimental and computational approaches to study cell-cell and cell-surface interactions”.
👩🔬 Cristina Furlan, from Wageningen University & Research, welcomed the attendees by presenting an overview of the session.
👨🔬 Rafael Rivilla, from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, gave the lecture: “Bacterial Synthetic communities (SynComs) as inoculants for agriculture and environmental protection”.
👨🔬 Daniel Farkas, from University of Surrey, gave a talk on “Constraint based metabolic modelling: basic concepts and application to communities”. 👨🔬 Manuel Salvador de Lara, from IDENER company, gave a talk on “Tools and methods for CB modelling and visualization”, while our partner 👩🔬 María Suárez Diez, from Wageningen University & Research, gave the lecture: “Systems biology approaches for studying cell-cell and cell-surface interactions”.
The last part of the training was given by Ales Lapanje, PhD Molecular Microbial Ecology (Jozef Stefan Institute), coordinator of the SURFBIO project, along with Dmitrii Deev and Maja Zugan (JSI), which included a practical part in the laboratory: “How to play with LEGO microbes to add spatial complexity of distribution of cells in metabolic models”. 🔬.
Comment (1)
Clearly, many thanks for the information.