AffiliAtes letter

Aug 2018

Meet FEMS Delegate Anastasiya Sidarenka

Dr. Anastasiya Sidarenka is FEMS Delegate of the Belarussian Non-governmental Association of Microbiologists.

As an experienced researcher in the area of microbial physiology and genetics, she is the principle investigator on the projects aimed at molecular detection of plant pathogenic bacteria and fungi and application of microorganisms for plant protection from diseases.

Her research interests also in-clude the study of human gut microbiota and microbiota of extreme Antarctic ecosystems.

In 2017, the first time after a long stalemate period in the history of Be-larusian Microbiological Society (BNAM) organized the Congress of Mi-crobiologists of Belarus. This marker event rallied microbiologists from different parts of the country to discuss the current state and identify key trends for the development of microbiological science in Belarus, share successes and challenges facing members in their research work, consolidate the efforts for solving important public problems. BNAM has been a full Member of FEMS since 2010 and is currently led by a group of dedicated Belarussian scientists.

We asked Dr Anastasiya Sidarenka what it means to be part of this community.

“BNAM is a national professional society joining together microbiolo-gists and biotechnologists from academic and industrial sectors to pro-mote research and development, improve professional skills, assist in the introduction of the scientific inventions and innovations into the real

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Aug 2018

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economy, popularize the latest ad-vances in microbiology and related areas.

Being a part of FEMS community gives us an excellent opportunity to represent Belarus internationally, broaden international networking and cooperation, share knowledge and experience with leading Euro-pean microbiologists, be engaged in progress of microbiology in Eu-rope. As members of FEMS we can apply for different types of grants, which is especially important for early career scientists.”

What are the biggest challenges facing microbiologists in Bela-rus?

“We live in a world dominated by microorganisms. There are billions of microbes around us, and a com-plex microbial ecosystem inside our body. Precise understanding of molecular mechanisms of host-microbe interactions and their role in health and disease is of great im-portance. Why are some of these microbes pathogenic and others beneficial? How do the microbes adapt to host specific niches and the immune system? Can we use specific microbes to prevent and treat diseases?

Members of BNAM are engaged in study of plant-microbe and ani-mal-microbe interactions, develop-ment of microbial biotechnologies for agriculture, medicine, industry and environmental protection. We try to popularize knowledge in this area through public lectures and

special sections in the framework of the conferences. In 2017, we organized round table discussion ‘Human microbiome (microbiota)

in health and disease’ united lead-ing specialists from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and other countries.

What are BNAM activities to look out for?

In 2018, BNAM will organize a series of public lectures to popularize mi-crobiological science and its latest advances, and traditional meeting of generations of microbiologists, dedicated to the Day of microbiolo-gist and pharmacist, celebrated in our country on the second Sunday of October.”

Starting from 2007 BNAM arranges the biennial International scientific conference ‘Microbial Biotechnolo-gies: Fundamental and Applied Aspects’, focused on the latest achievements in the field of mi-crobiology and biotechnology. Par-ticipation in this event, gathering prominent and early career scien-tists from Belarus and foreign coun-tries, is free for BNAM members.

Information about conferences you can find here.

In addition to organizing events, BNAM publishes annual series of collected papers ‘Microbial Bio-technologies: Fundamental and Applied Aspects’ – peer-reviewed books which include surveys and experimental articles on key issues in microbiology and biotechnology. You can find the series here (in Rus-sian).

Microbiology Heroes

The teacher that nudged you to study life sciences, the pioneer that saved many lives, a career in microbiology often starts with a hero. We’ve asked our Congress speakers to tell their stories - so that we may inspire many more. Read about them on our Hall of

Fame.

Anastasyia’s heroes

Stanley Falkow – American micro-biologist and immunologist

Bonnie Bassler – American micro-biologist and molecular biologist

Elizaveta Bonch- Osmolovskaya – Russian microbiologist

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Aug 2018

Pathogens and DiseasePerspective A hypothesis explaining why so many pathogen virulence proteins are moonlighting proteins. Moonlighting or multitasking proteins refer to those proteins with two or more functions performed by a single polypeptide chain. Proteins that belong to key ancestral functions and metabolic pathways such as primary metabolism typically

exhibit moonlighting phenomenon.

Authors: Franco-Serrano et al.

PUBLICATIONSFEMS Microbiology ReviewsReview article Tiny architects: biogenesis of intracellular replicative niches by bacterial pathogens

Reviews the current knowledge on a variety of vacuolar lifestyles, the effector proteins used by bacteria as tools to take control of the host cell and the main membrane trafficking signalling pathways targeted by vacuolar pathogens as source of membranes and nutrients.

Authors: Martinez et al. FEMS Microbiology EcologyResearch Article Gut microbial and metabolomic profiles after fecal microbiota transplantation in pediatric ulcerative colitis patients

Ulcerative colitis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the colon that carries a significant disease burden in children. Therefore, new therapeutic approaches are being explored to help children living with this disease.

Authors: Nusbaum et al.

FEMS Yeast ResearchResearch Article An expanded enzyme toolbox for production of cis, cis-muconic acid and other shikimate pathway derivatives in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

A wide range of commercially relevant aromatic chemicals can be synthesized via the shikimic acid pathway. Thus, this pathway has been the target of diverse metabolic engineering strategies.

Authors: Brückner et al.

FEMS Microbiology LettersMiniReview - Alternative strategies for lignocellulose fermentation through lactic acid bacteria: the state of the art and perspectives

Different strategies have been explored to extend LAB fermentation to lignocellulosic biomass. This review illustrates them and the perspectives of their applications to industrial second generation biorefinery processes.

Authors: Tarraran et al.

Aug 2018

GRANTS CORNER OPPORTUNITIESFEMS Journals GrantsHow our editors invest in science and support Early Career Scientists

We are delighted to announce the FEMS Journals Grants, which will provide an additional €8000 in funding to support early career researchers. This additional funding would not have been possible without the 40 FEMS Journals editors who waived their annual remuneration fee for handling journal manuscripts. The additional funding will feed directly into the FEMS Research and Training Grants. The FEMS Research and Training Grants support and nurture early career researchers to learn new skills and collaborate on new research projects at a host laboratory in a different European country to their country of residence.

We extend a huge thanks to our journal editors who have enabled this additional funding for early career researchers. This is a wonderful testament to the commitment of our community in investing in the future of science.

“Based on the research carried out during my PhD and later on as a post-doc I would like to develop my research on the extraction of potential prebiotics from renewable resources and evaluate their effect on gut microbiome along with other applications. Likewise, I hope to focus on the development of bioprocesses to valorise agricultural waste and by-product streams that will enable the production of a multitude of value-added products that could fit in the bioeconomy era.” —Vasiliki Kachrimanidou (Picture: Vasiliki Kachrimaridou and FEMS Microbiology Letters Section Editor Michael Sauer)

Journal Poster PrizesInvesting in Science

Delftechpark 37A, 2628 XJ Delft, The Netherlands

T: +31 15 302 0050 | E: fems@fems-microbiology.orgView of Miers Valley

DEADLINES

ExTRAS

EVENTS

A new portable laptop-size device can identify dozens of different microbes in your body within hours by speed reading key genetic markers. The test could dramatically improve treatment of infectious diseases and reduce antibiotic resistance. Researchers report that their new biochip can complete microbial scans in less than 2 hours with no culturing needed.†

Source: Science Magazine

Around 138 million women are affected by a distressing but treatable fungal infection world-wide, according to a research review by University of Manchester scientists. And the incidence of recurrent†thrush, warns lead researcher Dr. Riina Rautemaa-Richardson, is set to rise to an estimated 158 million people by 2030. “We hope this research will give more†women†the confidence talk more openly about a problem which is distressing and painful.”

Source: Medicalxpress

Scientists from Russia, New Zealand and the USA investigated permafrost deposits from the Miers Valley (Antarctica) for its presence of microorganisms-methanogens. In several samples they found not only biogenic methane, but also its previously unknown source - the archaeus of the genus Methanosarcina. These microorganisms have been viable for more than 15,000 years. Source: Tut.by