IMD in Germany

On 13th and 15th September 2022 we celebrated International Microorganism Day with NatLab at the Freie Universität Berlin. Approximately 100 high school students attended between the ages of 15-17 years old. The initial event was planned as a single afternoon, but because of increased interest we extended the event to run two days.

Our event consisted of a hands-on workshop exploring different aspects of microorganisms. The event opened with a series of short talks at the auditorium, with Dr. Dan Roizman talking about Leeuwenhoek, biofilms and antibiotic resistance. Dr. Ulrich Steiner followed up with the good side of microbes, showing how bacteria such as Escherichia coli can serve as model organisms to answer many complex questions. Eva Troner then presented her exciting work on polar algae and their contribution to biogeochemical cycles.

After these talks, students spent the afternoon doing a circuit of experiments. We had four stations set up and led by researchers from FU Berlin (Bacterial presence assays: Are bacteria living in our dairy products?, Yeast metabolism: Speeding up baker’s yeast!, Observation of oral microbiota: Who is growing in your mouth?, Microfluidics: Capturing bacteria in microscopic traps!).

“It was so fun to see what a university lab looks like and the kind of experiments you do there, it definitely gave me ideas for what I might want to study in the future :)”

We would like to thank our event organizers Audrey Proença, Arpita Nath, Dan Roizman, Amit Pandit, Sanjam Chandna and all the researchers that helped run the event!