News

On 26-27 September, the fourth edition of the OBSIDIAN international conference ‘Plant Productivity and Food Safety: Microbiology, Soil Science, Food Quality and Agricultural Genetics’ was held at the Faculty of Biological and Veterinary Sciences and the Faculty of Earth and Spatial Sciences of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.

We are excited to announce an upcoming workshop titled, "Decoding Soil Microbiome's Response to Drought Stress Using Morpheus," which will take place on September 25^th, 2024. This interactive, hands-on session will guide participants through the fascinating world of metagenomics analysis and its application to understanding soil and plant microbiome responses to environmental stress.

The fifth edition of the SUITMA International Seminar took place on May 10, 2024 in Toruń. Soil scientists and students from several countries (Poland, Morocco, Brazil, Iran, USA, Czech Republic, Italy, Vietnam, Niger) took part in a hybrid session of oral presentations and a poster session.

On March  15, 2024, a scientific seminar and workshop titled "The whole world in (sub)red - the application of analytics and FTIR microscopy in environmental protection, earth sciences and biological research" was held.

Scientific Seminar combined with a workshop entitled: "The whole world in (sub)red - application of analytics and FTIR microscopy in environmental protection, earth sciences and biological research".

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On December 5, 2023, as part of the Emerging Field research group "OBSIDIAN - Microbiology, Soil Science, Food Quality and Aricultural Genetics" was held special seminar. It was titled "Plant growth promoting microorganisms in areable soils: potentials and challenges," and the Guest Lecturer was apl. Prof. Dr. agr. habil. Christel Baum, from the Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences on University of Rostock. Prof. Baum presented the main problems that crop farmers face on a daily basis. She mainly drew attention to the risks that are associated with conventional plant production, as well as climate changes that significantly affect plant growth and the condition of cultivated soils. The lecture showed that the use of microorganisms (including arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi) and their metabolites, can effectively support plant growth in the difficult conditions that are common in fields.

On November 23, 2023, as part of the Emerging Field research group "OBSIDIAN - Microbiology, Soil Science, Food Quality and Aricultural Genetics" was held seminar. It was titled "Microbial Symphony: A hidden interplay in the soil" and the Guest Lecturer was Dr Eric Carvalho Pereira, post-doctoral fellow  at UCD Agriculture and Food Science Centre, University College Dublin (Ireland). He has developed scientific research work particulary on field of Microbial Ecology and Plant-Fungal interactions. As a recipent of Marie Skłodowska-Curie PhD fellowship (2016-2019) he conducted research on the fungal endophytes in grasses and its functionality in mitigating plant salinity stress, whose results were published in journals with high scientific impact. He received his PhD in Agrobiotechnology from the University of Salamanca (2020).

Dr hab. Piotr Hulisz, NCU Prof. has been awarded an apparatus investment grant of 499 000 PLN under the "Excellence Initiative - Research University" program. The project entitled "Microplastics in the environment: The analysis of contamination pathways in plants, soil and water" concerns the purchase of an FT-IR Microscopy System.

FTIR microscopy is a very modern research technique that allows, i.e., to:

- identification of microplastics in samples of plant tissues, water, soil, and sediments,

- analysis of suspensions of bacteria, and fungal hyphae,

- analysis of humic acids extracted from soils,

- detection of proteins, sugars, fats, and some metabolites.

On June 20-21, 2023, the VII National Microbiology Symposium "Metagenomics of Different Environments" was held in Lublin, during which staff and doctoral students from the Department of Microbiology presented their results. The purpose of the symposium was to present the latest developments in research in metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metabolomics and their applications in microbiology and mycology, as well as in the development of sustainable agriculture and environmental protection. The conference "Metagenomes of Different Environments" is a cyclical event, which was attended by scientists from all over Poland and from foreign scientific centers.

During the symposium, the head of the Department of Microbiology, Prof. Dr. Katarzyna Hrynkiewicz, gave a lecture entitled "Effect of mycorrhizal fungi on healthy and PVY-infected plants of Solanum tuberosum L.". Dr. Dominika Thiem received 1st place for the best poster entitled "Mycorrhizal bioinoculants increase tolerance of Alnus glutionosa Gaertn. to salinity".  Third place in the best presentation competition was awarded to PhD student Mariusz Wróbel, M.D., for his oral presentation "Acquisition of bacteria that degrade polymers - PP, PVC, PLA and PC." Dr. Edyta Deja-Sikora, Dr. Sonia Szymanska, Dr. Bliss Furtado and PhD students Piotr Koczorski, M.Sc. and Jagoda Szydło, M.Sc. also presented their research results in the form of posters.

On June 23, 2023, as part of the Emerging Field research group "OBSIDIAN - Microbiology, Soil Science, Food Quality and Aricultural Genetics", a seminar was held at which dr rer. nat. Katja Witzel from the Leibniz-Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops in Germany gave a lecture on research work conducted at the Institute using modern proteomic analyzes of plant material. The lecture presented the wide application of chromatographic methods in combination with mass spectrometry in order to analyze the protein profile or secondary metabolites of plants. In addition, the possibility of using the MALDI-TOF MS technique in the differential analysis of bacteria was also discussed.

The implementation of the NitroFixSal Project, funded by Horizon2020 and conducted at our faculty’s Department of Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology, is nearing completion since its launch on July 1st, 2021.

On January 13th, 2023, the fourth SUITMA international didactic-scientific seminar was held at the Faculty of Earth Sciences and Spatial Management at UMK in Toruń, organized by members of the EF Microbiology, Soil science, Food quality and Agricultural genetics (OBSIDIAN) – Piotr Hulisz and Przemyslaw Charzyński.  

On behalf of the Research Team EF Microbiology, Soil science, Food quality and Agricultural genetics (OBSIDIAN), Bydgoszcz-Toruń Branch of the Polish Soil Science Society and the Faculty of Earth Sciences and Spatial Management of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, we cordially invite you to the SUITMA International Seminar, focused on current problems of urban, industrial, traffic, mining and military areas soils research.

On behalf of the Emerging research field "Soil science, microbiology, agricultural genetics and food quality"  we would like to invite you to a guest lecture on “Analysis of the interaction between arbuscular mycorrhiza and potato nematodes using X-ray Computed Tomography technique” on 1st December 2022.

Speaker: Dr Eric C. Pereira from the University College Dublin, Ireland

Time: 1st December 2022 at 9 a.m.

Venue: Faculty of Biology and Veterinary Sciences, Buiding A, room 288

Dr. Smail Mehda, a young scientist from El-Oued University in Algeria, paid a visit from October 24-28 under the framework of ERASMUS+ program. As part of a meeting jointly organized by the Polish Soil Science Society (Bydgoszcz branch) and the Emerging Field: Soil Science, Microbiology, Genetics in Agriculture and Food Quality team, he delivered a lecture entitled: "Biological soil crusts of Sahara desert".

The NitroFixalSal (Nitrogen-fixing bacteria from extreme environments as a remedy for N deficiency in saline soils) project coordinated by PhD Agnieszka Kalwasińska has received funding from the EU budget (137 625 EUR) and will be implemented in the Department of Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology in collaboration with PhD Sweta Binod Kumar and the Emerging Field Soil Science, Microbiology, Agricultural Genetics, and Food Quality.