Applications are now open for the FEMS Ukraine Support Grant.

This scheme aims to support Early Career Microbiologists to undergo research and training at a European host institution (academic or industrial). Applicants can receive up to €6,000 for travel, accommodation, and some living costs to undergo research and training at a European host institution

To find out more about the grant and how to submit your application follow the link below.

As an Early Career Scientist, do you want to acquire experience in industry, but don’t know how? As an industry professional, do you want to find best scientists to work on a project in your company? Then join the Collaboration Portal!

With the Collaboration Portal on FEMS Industry Placement Grants (IPG), we want to facilitate the connection between Early Career Scientists who want to apply for an IPG, and a possible host industry to jointly prepare a grant proposal. Industry Placement Grants assist early career scientists in gain experience at a European host industry.

These grants may be used to contribute to travel, accommodation and subsistence costs of making the visit. Support is limited to a maximum of €5000.

Deadline for IPG applications is 1 February and 1 August. Don’t hesitate and join the Collaboration Portal!

The deadline for applications to the FEMS Summer School for Postdocs 2022 is approaching!

The Summer School presents a unique opportunity for early career scientists to receive instruction and supervision from prominent academics, collaborate and network with fellow researchers from an international range of countries, and to discuss their own work as well as wider aspects of being a scientist. 

The Application Deadline is 1 June 2022, 23:59 CEST.

You can find detailed information on the application procedure, requirements and selection criteria here:

The FEMS Education Group has drafted a guideline curriculum for Degrees in Health Science.

The aim is to provide microbiology teachers of health sciences degrees, with a guide to design their subject-specific teaching programs.

It also seeks to define basic ideas about the knowledge to be acquired, and the methods for training professionals who must be capable to deliver microbiology knowledge and practice in the health context.

The Microbiology Society is pleased to announce that registration is open for What’s New in Cryptosporidium? The Focused Meeting will take place 4–5 July 2022 at Swansea University Bay Campus and feature a varied programme of renowned invited speakers and offered paper presenters, showcasing the latest research.

The audience will hear about advances in the field, share good practice, and establish collaborations with others, across science, industry, public and environmental health and clinical and veterinary practice. Final registration deadline: 20 June 2022.

Key topics will include

• Clinical cryptosporidiosis
• Environmental health
• Public health
• Laboratory research
• Veterinary aspects of Cryptosporidium

Register to secure your place today.

The next global Peer Review Week event is right around the corner, and it's time to pick this year's theme! The planning committee wants to hear from you. Take this 1-question poll to choose the theme.

Peer Review Week is a virtual community-led yearly global event celebrating the essential role that peer review plays in maintaining scientific quality. The event brings together individuals, institutions, and organizations committed to sharing the central message that good peer review, whatever shape or form it might take, is critical to scholarly communications.

Responses due by 10th of June 2022

When bacterial spores awake, they germinate to convert into actively growing cells. The germination phase is brief and represents the first and most critical revival event. It was long thought that this event does not require the synthesis of new RNA and proteins.

This dogma keeps being challenged as outlined in the review “Reviving the View: Evidence that Macromolecule Synthesis Fuels Bacterial Spore Germination” in microLife.

Sigal Ben-Yehuda explains for the #FEMSmicroBlog how – in contrast to the current dogma – bacterial spore germination demands macromolecule synthesis.

#FascinatingMicrobes

FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Your natural research habitat

FEMS Microbiology Letters

Promoting new ideas

FEMS Microbiology Reviews

Outstanding reviews from leading experts

Comammox Nitrospira bacteria outnumber canonical nitrifiers irrespective of electron donor mode and availability in biofiltration systems

To better understand the comammox bacterial role within these complex nitrifying communities, we investigated their population dynamics across two nitrogen sources (ammonia or urea) at three total nitrogen dosing strategies.

Katherine J Vilardi, Irmarie Cotto, Maria Sevillano, Zihan Dai, Christopher L Anderson, Ameet Pinto

Phylogenetic analysis and antibiotic resistance of Shigella sonnei isolates

We determined the phylogeny and antibiotic resistance profiles of S. sonnei strains and found most of the strains clustered within the lineage III and resistance against trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole and tetracycline antibiotics.gy-mediated end joining.

Babak Pakbin, Abdollah Didban, Wolfram M Brück, Mehdi Alizadeh

An overview of gene regulation in bacteria by small RNAs derived from mRNA 3′ ends

Over the past two decades, small noncoding RNAs (sRNAs) that regulate mRNAs by short base pairing have gone from a curiosity to a major class of post-transcriptional regulators in bacteria. They are integral to many stress responses and regulatory circuits, affecting almost all aspects of bacterial life. The authors review our current knowledge of sRNAs derived from the 3' end of mRNAs.

Falk Ponath, Jens Hör, Jörg Vogel

Pathogens and Disease

Next generation host pathogen research

FEMS Yeast Research

The yeast community journal 

Out Now: Virtual Issue, first in our ‘Landmarks in Microbiology’ series

A framework for educating and empowering students by teaching about history and consequences of bias in STEM

Racism and bias are pervasive in society—and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are not immune to these issues. It is imperative that we educate ourselves and our students about the history and consequences of this bias in STEM, investigate the research showing bias toward marginalized groups, understand how to interpret misuses of science in perpetuating bias, and identify advances and solutions to overcome racism and bias throughout our professional and personal lives.

Corrie S Moreau, Andrea M Darby, Amelia-Juliette C Demery, Lina M Arcila Hernández, Clara L Meaders

Protocols for marker-free gene knock-out and knock-down in Kluyveromyces marxianus using CRISPR/Cas9

There is increased interest in strain engineering in the food and industrial yeast Kluyveromyces marxianus and a number of CRISPR/Cas9 systems have been described and used by different groups. The methods that we developed allow for very rapid and efficient inactivation of target genes using the endogenous DNA repair mechanisms of the cell.

Arun S Rajkumar, John P Morrissey

Landmarks in Microbiology: Anammox

This Virtual Issue is the first in our ‘Landmarks in Microbiology’ series. These collections will celebrate influential papers in the discipline published in the FEMS journals, as well as the exciting research that has grown from standing on the shoulders of these landmarks.

Our first collection focuses on anaerobic ammonium oxidation, or Anammox, a process first described in FEMS Microbiology Ecology in 1995. The papers that follow on from the original further explore this intriguing microbial metabolism, from reporting on environmental factors determining distribution and activity of anammox bacteria in minerotrophic fen soils, to deep-sea methane seep sediments in the Okhotsk Sea sustaining diverse and abundant anammox bacteria. These papers, spanning over two decades, show the wealth of knowledge we have come to understand, and start what we hope will be a fascinating series for our community.

Bringing together industry, research and policy. The quickening pace of scientific and technological discovery is re-shaping policies, markets and economies around the world.

Arm yourself with a
regular new Science|Business briefing.

Research and Training Grants are meant to assist early career scientists in pursuing research and training at a European host institution in another country than their own country of residence.

Deadline for application: 1 July for projects that will start within a year from the following 1 September

The 4th Ecology of Soil Microorganisms meeting with occur on 19 – 23 June 2022 in Prague, Czech Republic. The theme will be “Microbes as Important Drivers of Soil Processes”.

The conference is planned as an interdisciplinary platform that should offer as much interaction among various subjects within microbial ecology as possible. This includes questions addressing individual microbes, microbial communities as well as their interactions with the environment and other soil biota. 

Conference participants are welcome to submit full papers based on their results presented at the conference to the Special Thematic Issue of FEMS Microbiology Ecology, Ecology of Soil Microorganisms“. Deadline for submissions is December 15, 2022.

Did you know that every week we upload a short microscopy video?

Eleni Koursari, our Science Communications Officer, collects fresh samples from the environment and shares with you her findings, from diatoms to rotifers and nematodes! Head to our Instagram account and discover the amazing microscopic world with us!

If you are a member of one of our Member Societies, we would love to hear from you so we can spread the news of your society’s activities, developments, and initiatives to the microbiology community. Just fill in the following news submission form so we can communicate your news: 

News Submission Form

Do you want to promote your event, job, funding or interesting projects on our website to the wider microbiology community? You can do this on our Opportunities Board, where you can also
find events and funding sponsored by FEMS and from organizations throughout the microbiology community. To promote your event, job, funding or interesting projects on our website to the wider microbiology community on our Opportunities Board, please complete our opportunities
form:

Opportunity Submission Form

Our communications network consists of tens of thousands of international and European microbiologists who we engage with our newsletters, social media, and website

Three Early Career Scientists from FEMS Member Societies have been granted the first FEMS Industry Placement Grants (IPG) in early 2022!

FEMS IPG assist early career scientists in gain experience at a European host industry. Any industry, including non-laboratory work, can be considered as long as relevant for microbiology. These grants may be used to contribute to travel, accommodation and subsistence costs of making the visit. Deadlines to apply for FEMS IPG are 1 February and 1 August.

Applicants and host industries interested in this scheme are encouraged to join the Collaboration Portal which is a virtual space for industries and applicants to meet.