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Summer School/Annual meetings

1. Summer School at DTU, Denmark

The 1st PEST-BIN Summer school was held at the premises at DTU in Lyngby, Denmark from 11-15th October 2021. The ESRs had a full one week with interesting scientific lectures from both industry and academia speakers, workshop on how to write a scientific paper, gender equality talk as well as IP and Research ethics lectures. The summer school ended with project presentations from each ESR.

2. Summer School at CUT, Sweden

The 2nd PEST-BIN Summer school was held at the premises at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden from 19-23rd September 2022. The ESRs had a full one week with interesting scientific lectures from both industry and academia speakers, workshop on how to write a SoMe post and how to communicate their research to the media as well as EU research regulation lecture from the Ministry of Higher Education in Denmark. The summer school ended with project presentations from each ESR.

3. Summer School at UIB, Spain

The 3rd PEST-BIN Summer school was held at the premises at the University of the Balearic Islands, Palma, Spain from 23-27th October 2023. The summer school started with project presentations from each ESR and after that the ESRs had a full one week with interesting scientific lectures from both industry and academia speakers, letcture on Life cycle assessment as well as career planing and managing a researcg team.

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Popular science article

1.ESR12 Anja Tušar has published her first popular science article with title “How knowledge of evolution helps us fight bacteria”. Check the article (in Slovenian) here ->

Kako nam znanje o evoluciji pomaga v boju z bakterijami | Alternator

2. ESR2 Munis Khan published his first popular science article with title “Simpler graphene method paves way for new era of nanoelectronics”. Check the article here ->

Simpler graphene method paves way for new era of nanoelectronics | Chalmers

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Conference participation

ESR14 Hengzhi Ruan supervised by Associate Prof. Roland Kádár had a poster presentation on NPD2022 in Chalmers about his work on rheology studies of antibacterial hydrogels. The conference took place on 1-3 June 2022 at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.

ESR1 Leonarda Acha Alarcon and ESR9 Payal Nashier, presented posters at the 4th International conference on post-translational modifications in Bacteria (PTMBact 2022) held in Copenhagen on 5th and 6th May 2022.

ESR11 Jose Maria Serpa Laço participated in a conference in Mallorca called “XIX Reunión del grupo de Taxonomía, Filogenia y Biodiversidad”, between 13-15 October 2022, where he made an oral presentation entitled “Bacterial diversity in the hospital environment as a potential reservoir of nosocomial infections”.

ESR14 Hengzhi Ruan from the Rheology and Processing of Soft Matter group in Chalmers presented his research at The Nordic Rheology Conference 2022 organized by University of Iceland. The event took place on 10th August 2022.

ESR4 Lydia Palaiodimou poster presentation in the Analytics Congress 2022 which took part in Nantes, France, from the the 5th to the 8th of September 2022.

ESR14 Hengzhi Ruan from the Rheology and Processing of Soft Matter group in Chalmers presented his research at The Nordic Polimer Days 2023 in Copenhagen from May 8-10th.

ESR9 Payal Nashier presented her work at the CellMAP @TRR261 conference in May 2023.

ESR4 Flavia Ferrara presented her work at the “Attilio Corbella” International Summer School on Organic Synthesis (ISOS ) 16-20 June 2024, Italy.

ESR14 Hengzhi Ruan presented his work to researchers working in different fields as well as to people working in some Swedish government institutions and companies. The event took place at Chalmers University of Technology.

ESR9 Payal Nashier presented her work at the BSPR-EuPA 2023 conference in Newcastle from July 17th to 20th.

ESR14 Hengzhi Ruan presented his work about antibacterial hydrogels on 33rd Annual Conference of the European Society for Biomaterials, which took place from September 4 to September 8, 2023 in Davos, Switzerland.

ESR10 Sara Pita presented her work at the EMBL Human microbiome conference on 20 - 23 Sep 2023 in EMBL Heidelberg, Germany.

ESR14 Hengzhi Ruan presented his work on the conference ‘Materials for Tomorrow 2023’ in Chalmers University of Technology on November 8th - 10th, 2023. He attended both poster session and Rapid fire session.

ESR6 Sara Ribeiro participated in three congresses with two posters, one in Immunotherapies and innovations for infectious diseases congress (“I4ID”) the 22 and 23 November 2023 in Lyon; and one for the Scientifically day of her doctoral school EDISS. The third one was the recent BPTM 2024 hosed in Rouen, France.

ESR15 Thomas Vernay gave in total three talks at the University of Milano in Feb 2022, Nov 2023 and in May 2024. The last one was part of the biotech course roundtables with ~30 bachelor students, ~5 external/non-students where he gave a presentation about antibiotic resistance and the need for new antibiotics. Moreover, he organized with some colleagues at his university a PhD science dissemination congress for the 25th anniversary of the University on November 30th 2023. He presented a 15 min talk showing the interest of looking into nature, especially environmental bacteria, to find new interesting molecules among which the most required antibiotics.

ESR11 Jose Maria Serpa Laço recently participated at two conferences. The first one was the International Biennial Pseudomonas Conference, held in Copenhagen from 1-5 September 2024 and where he presented a poster entitled: “Improved Identification of Pseudomonas putida Group Species and Detection of Antibiotic Resistance Genes Using Proteotyping”. The second one was XX Taxon, held in Salamanca, Spain from 26-28 September 2024 and where he made an Oral Presentation entitled: “Unveiling the Hidden Diversity of the Stenotrophomonas Genus Through Phylogenomic Analysis”, for which he also won the best Oral Presentation award.

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Public events

ESR12 Anja Tušar participated at the European Research Night in Slovenia – a public event dedicated to the dissemination of science to the general public. The event took place on 24th September 2021.

ESR12 Anja Tušar gave a lecture to primary school students about her work and showed how the laboratory looks like. In the end, she showed them some examples of useful and dangerous bacteria that we see in everyday life. The event was held online on 24th November 2021.

ESR4 Lydia Palaiodimou presented a poster at the European Research Night in Brussels, Belgium – a public event dedicated to the dissemination of science to the general public The event took place on 24th September 2021.

ESR6 Sara Ribeiro presented the PEST-BIN project to high school students at the high school ‘Lycée Aux Lazaristes La Salle’ on November 17th, 2021.

ESR8 Margaux Demuysere, on the 28th August 2021, took part in the event “Conference Embarquées” organized by CNRS, where researchers talk about their research to the general public on small boats. She gave a talk about antibiotic resistance and she talked to 5 different groups, which represents around 15 people.

ESR8 also went to the high school “Lycée Public de St Just” on December 7th 2021 to talk about her research and research in general. The event was organized in the context of Declics, a French initiative aiming at establishing a dialogue between researchers and high school students. Around 70 students attended the event, and she talked to roughly half of them.

ESR2 Munik Khan presented a poster at the Excellence Initiative Nano Community Building Activity at Varbergs Kusthotell Sweden, on 22-24 August, 2022

ESR1 Leonarda Acha Alarcon and ESR11 José Maria Serpa Laço participated at the European Research Night in Sweden – a public event dedicated to the dissemination of science to the general public. The event took place on 26th September 2022. The activities were named “Borrow a researcher” and “Drottning Blanka – Malmö City”.

ESR Sara Pita gave students aged 13-18 a presentation on Mining the Human Gut Microbiome for Health at the Educational fair hosted by Danmarks Tekniske museum. The educational fair aimed to showcase school-aged children a range of future career paths. Our ESR contributed with illustrating the journey towards becoming a researcher, why gut microbiome research is important in understanding health and finally, the workflows she is developing to understand the role of the gut microbiome in health.

ESR5 Ema Svetlicic gave a one-hour talk to high school students as part of the Studiepraktik at DTU. Studiepraktik is an annual event where high school students from all over Denmark learn about different study programs and PhD projects to help them choose their future study. Ema gave a talk on different methods of bacterial diagnostics and how her project can tackle the challenges of bacterial identification.

ESR3 Flavia Ferrara took part in a podcast organized at the Chalmers University of Technology where she explained her research project. You have the chance to hear the podcast here.

Link for the website is here.

ESR1 Leonarda Acha Alarcon and ESR11 Jose Serpa Laço were featured in the Akademiliv, the news of Sahlgrenska Academy. They explained their projects and how they are collaborating with each other. You can read more about this here.

ESR2 Munis Khan and ESR14 Hengzhi Ruan gave a seminar regarding the topics of bacteria/killing biofilm/biosensor at Hvitfeldtska gymnasiet and talked about antibacterial strategies and graphene technologies. The event took place on 13th Dec, 2022.

ESR9 Payal Nashier recently had the opportunity to take part in Kinder-Uni-Forschungstag which is “ Children’s University Research Day ” where she had the chance to interact with 13 school going children of 10-12 years age with microbes and antibacterial things around us by different activities. The event took place on July 1st, 2023.

ESR9 and ESR15 participated in an outreach activity where they had a stand in Science and Innovation days 2023 at University of Tübingen. They presented a poster with all the projects of Pest-Bin project.

ESR8 hosted an open day at the Institute of Biology and Chemistry of Proteins during “La Fête de la Science”, a national event that promotes dialogue between scientists and citizens. They organized a microbiology workshop with an introduction to microscopy and bacterial growth curves, as well as a showcase of all sorts of bacteria grown on different types of media in presence and absence of antibiotics. Around 30 students attenden the event.

ESR3 Flavia Ferrara hosted an open day for many students at Chalmers University of Technology. The students found the event quite interesting as it was very helpful and relatable to their field of study (chemistry and chemical engineering).

ESR3 Flavia Ferrara gave a talk at seminar series called “Small Talks” at the Chalmers University of Technology which was open to university students. The event took place in May, 2024.

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Awards

ESR1 Leonarda Acha Alarcon received the Elisabeth Bollan Lindén-stipend 2022 (1 out of 4 awards) for doing quantitative #proteomics 📊 of Streptococcus pneumoniae 🦠 at the Proteomics Core Facilities of University of Gothenburg. The topic was Virulence of Streptococcus pneumoniae - Comparison of differential protein expression levels of invasive vs non-invasive strains using quantitative proteomics.

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Teaching Materials

ESR12 Anja Tušar prepared teaching materials for high school students and is developed around popular experiment with yeasts in plastic bottle with ballons on top. Have a look”.