Microbiology is playing an increasing role in the fields of medicine, agriculture, pharmaceutical and food industry. The Portuguese Society of Microbiology (SPM) in partnership with Ciência Viva, the Order of Biologists (OBio) and the Portuguese Ecological Society (SPECO), organised a set of activities under the commemorations of the International Microorganism Day (IMD 2019), which is celebrated today, 17th September. For the second consecutive year, Técnico hosted and organised some activities, promoting knowledge exchange and the discovery of this invisible world.
The participants had the opportunity to attend a wide range of activities, visit exhibitions, attend lectures and learn more about projects and the challenges ahead.
Professor Isabel Sá Correia, president of SPM, welcomed the participants. “It is with great joy that we are celebrating for the 3rd time the IMD”. “Microorganisms play a very important role in our lives and Microbiology is a broad field whose employment rate has been growing a lot. The SPM promotes the IMD in Portugal and abroad. Portugal kicked off the IMD and now other countries are doing the same”, explained professor Isabel Sá Correia.
Professor Arlindo Oliveira, president of Técnico, stressed the importance of this event: “This is a very important event because it draws attention to the role of microorganisms and their importance for our future”.
Several experts stressed the importance of microorganisms in our life and on earth, namely in agriculture, industry and health. Luís Costa, Chief Operations Officer at A4F-Algae for Future, talked about the “key role” of microorganisms in biorefineries. Tina Keller-Costa, iBB researcher, explained why we can’t live without the microbial dark matter and highlighted the role of metagenomics in a new view of the tree of life. Nuno Bernardes, iBB researcher, focused his speech on the role of microorganisms in the fight against cancer: “Over the past few years, new evidence shows how some very specific microorganisms can be used to treat tumors”. “There has been a paradigmatic shift of the role of microorganisms in cancer treatment, largely due to the use of some cells for both therapies and early cancer detection”, said the iBB researcher.
