Theory
Microbes play an essential role in sustaining higher life forms on Earth, including marine sponges, plants, fish, and animals. Their significance lies in their vast diversity of physiological traits, allowing them to thrive in various environments by extracting energy from organic resources, minerals, and light. In fact, many microbes depend on other microbes for their survival. The microbial communities that support other organisms are known as microbiomes. A healthy microbiome is crucial for overall health, resilience, and potentially mental well-being. However, some microbes can disrupt these communities, leading to illnesses or directly attacking organisms, causing infections or even death.
Humanity has countered these threats with antibiotics, but microbes have developed resistance, leading to an ongoing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) arms race. In response, beneficial microbes are increasingly used to combat harmful ones, particularly in agriculture. A vital component of microbiome ecology is bacteriophages—viruses that specifically target and kill bacteria. Their role is gaining recognition, and their ability to eliminate resistant bacterial pathogens is being explored. Historically, humans have utilized microbes for producing foods like beer, bread, and yogurt. Today, they are integral in creating life-saving antibiotics, cancer drugs, and other biopharmaceuticals, as well as enzymes for industrial applications.
Despite their importance, our understanding of microbes, microbiomes and their interaction with other species remains limited. In this course, 10 experts will present, in 2 hour seminars, fundamental concepts and the latest insights in their fields, focusing on bacteria, bacteriophages, and microbiomes from molecular, ecological, and systems biology perspectives. You will learn the molecular mechanisms that define bacteria as beneficial or harmful, and how inter-species communication occurs during infection, and microbiome balance or imbalance. Varies microbiomes will be reviewed, including marine, plant, and the human intestinal microbiome, and how niche occupation, competition, evolution, and the impact of bacteriophages can affect them.
Practical
Working with microorganisms requires specific abilities to work safely while preventing unwanted contamination. Acquiring these abilities is incorporated into the practical work of two small research projects each student will carry out, one in an IBED laboratory and one in a SILS laboratory. Various projects will be offered, from aquatic microbiology, microbial ecology, molecular microbiology, and microbial physiology. The projects will be carried out by 2 to 4 students and will be supervised by PhD students, postdocs, and technicians of the two institutes. Participants will learn how contemporary knowledge about microorganisms is translated into fundamental research questions and gather hands-on experience. The students will present the results of these practicals to peers and instructors in a mini-symposium.