"Let's Talk About Symbiosis" in March 2023

Event

Never getting tired of talking about microbial symbiosis, we again held our recurring seminar “Let’s Talk About Symbiosis”. We had a great panel of speakers that nicely reflected the diversity of microbial symbiosis research at the University of Vienna.
Teresa Winter and Charles Roque Figueiredo took us to the Adriatic Sea and introduced us to the Zoothamnium and shipworm species they study, respectively. Next up, Michael Predl got us thinking about metabolic models to predict cross-feeding in microbial communities, an objective that is of great interest for many who study symbiosis. Sanaz Khadem then travelled with us to Jordan and the wild mice populations there. Her interest in particular lies in the mice’s gut microbiome and the influence environmental factors have on its composition. We took another dive into the ocean with Liz Hambleton, who talked about her research on coral-algal symbiosis off the coast of Japan. Finally, Nicole Krause brought us back home, so to speak, and shared her insights into chromosome organisation in oral cavity symbionts of, amongst other hosts, humans. Many thanks also to Lukas Helmlinger and Marta Sudo for chairing the sessions.

It has been a pleasure to hear about everybody’s exciting research projects and we are already looking forward to the next “Let’s Talk About Symbiosis”.