PROMICON’s Third Annual Meeting was celebrated at CIB-CSIC on May, 28-29

On 28 and 29 May 2024, PROMICON partners gathered in Madrid, Spain, for the third annual project meeting. The event was hosted by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) at the Margarita Salas Center for Biological Research (CIB-CSIC), co-organized with the National Center of Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC), and with the help of the AIMEN Technology Center (Pontevedra).

The meeting focused on reviewing the past year’s progress and planning the upcoming final project year. Beginning with updates from each work package, the partners caught up on each other’s advancements during the first meeting day. In addition, some of the PROMICON’s early career researchers participated in a presentation competition on their project results, with Beatriz Altamira-Algarra, from UPC Barcelona, winning the prize for Best Presentation.

On the second day of the meeting, partners visited the center’s facilities and learned more about the bioreactors and the work of their colleagues from CIB-CSIC. Afterward, an Innovation Workshop Practice led by ISLE Utilities prepared attendees for an upcoming event with the project’s Innovation Board. At the same time, a Machine Learning Workshop by NOVA ID offered the opportunity to explore new ideas and approaches for data analysis.

Overall, the third annual PROMICON meeting was a success, fostering a collaborative environment, showcasing the progress from each partner institution, and equipping participants with new knowledge and skills to drive the project into its final year.

PROMICON (Harnessing the power of nature through productive microbial consortia in biotechnology – measure, model & master) is a project from the EU Horizon 2020 program call coordinated by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (Leipzig, Germany) with the participation of CSIC through the groups of Dr. Eduardo Díaz (CIB-CSIC) and Dr. Juan Nogales (CNB-CSIC). The project aims to learn from nature how microbiomes function through the development and application of quantitative physiology, online flow cytometry, imaging, cell sorting, machine learning, and systems biology. Newly constructed microbial consortia, inspired by natural microbiomes, will be used for the biotechnological production of energy carriers or drop-in feedstocks for the chemical and fuel industry and functionalized bacterial polyesters for bio-medical applications.

More information:

Project Website: https://promicon.eu/