Section “Microbial communities of natural and anthropogenic habitats, biocollections, creation of producer strains”
Within the section “Microbial Communities of Natural and Anthropogenic Habitats, Biocollections, Development of Producer Strains,” the following thematic areas are planned:
- Structure and functional diversity, genomics and metagenomics of microbial communities from marine and freshwater bodies, high-temperature thermal springs, terrestrial mud volcanoes, saline and soda lakes, underground water reservoirs, arable and tundra soils—as sources of new microbial strains with unique enzyme systems and metabolic pathways promising for use in industrial biotechnology, agriculture, and environmental protection;
- Microorganisms and microbial communities of oil reservoirs as a source of new technologies for enhanced oil recovery and for combating oil pollution;
- Molecular mechanisms of microbial resistance to heavy metals; use of microbial communities in biohydrometallurgy and bioremediation;
- Microbial communities in biotechnologies for wastewater treatment, processing of organic waste, and improving soil fertility;
- Non-sterile cultivation as a basis for forming stable microbial communities in technological processes; new data on interspecies electron transfer; electromicrobiology;
- Biofilms and their role in the survival of microorganisms under adverse environmental conditions;
- Microbial consortia in the food industry and winemaking;
- Development of microbial culture collections (depositories) as a basis for building modern infrastructure in the field of microbial genetic resources;
- New technologies for creating highly efficient producer strains; development of industrial microbial strains with potential for large-scale application.
The section also welcomes integrative studies combining advanced experimental approaches with bioinformatics/systems computational biology methods, including software tools for:
- deep automated functional annotation of genomes and metagenomes;
- creation of databases/knowledge bases containing information on 3D protein structures encoded by genomes/metagenomes and functional sites within these 3D structures;
- reconstruction of gene networks and metabolic pathways of microbial communities based on genomic and metagenomic data;
- computer modeling of gene networks and metabolic pathways of microorganisms;
- computer-aided design of experiments to create producer strains with target properties, etc.