In November, an online expert visit Of Lukasz Dziewit from Warszaw University to UCP happened. The research visit had as a major objective to learn how to analyze metagenomic data, by learning which are the best tools available to perform each step of the metagenomic analysis and how to interpret the results obtained. This focus on bioinformatics allowed the realization of a research visit at distance, avoiding all the contingencies due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, the expert visit of Dr. Lukasz Dziewit to UCP was in online mode.
The expert visit consisted of an online lecture dedicated to “Computational microbiology – from extreme environments to biotechnology” given by Doctor Lukasz Dziewit. This lecture was advertised widely and successfully to different target groups from academic and non-academic areas from Portugal and other European and non-European countries by mailing and/or personal invitations.
Abstract used for the dissemination of the lecture:
The development of sequencing technologies resulted in tremendous progress in microbial ecology (including microbiology of extreme environments) and environmental biotechnology. It is directly related to the technological and conceptual leap in bioinformatics, which has become one of the most dynamically developing fields of biology. However, in environmental researches, and in particular in environmental microbiology, there is still a lot to be discovered and optimized, especially when analyzing data, coupling them with metadata, and developing novel tools for studying microbial biodiversity. In our researches, we focused on genomic analyzes of plasmidomes and metaplasmidomes of extreme environments, identifying genes of an adaptive value, and analyzing the range of horizontal gene/plasmid transfer. In addition, thanks to in-depth genomic analysis of psychrotolerant bacteria, we managed to create biological systems that use selected strains as microbial factories for producing various secondary metabolites (dyes, siderophores, and surfactants), which then we used for producing novel environmental technologies. An important aspect of our research is also the development of novel tools (including bioinformatic ones) for environmental analyses. We developed a set of novel primers for screening of antibiotic resistance genes; LCPDb-ARG - literature-based, manually-curated database of PCR primers for the monitoring of antibiotic resistance genes in various environments and MAISEN – the system for semiautomatic annotation of bacterial genomes.