Biography
Biography: Jose F. Garcia-Mazcorro
Abstract
Environmental Microbiology is one of the most exciting fields in contemporary science because of three main interrelated aspects. It deals with the lives and metabolic activities of microorganisms and their communities in different environments, a phenomenon of much interest for people studying microbial evolution. Second, individual microbes within a community are capable of interacting with each other using multiple different strategies, including quorum sensing. This is particularly intriguing for those with an interest in using complex ecosystems to create and/or improve industrial processes. Third, Environmental Microbiology is interested in understanding microbially driven processes, which may help design strategies to reduce carbon footprint and other urgently needed world massive changes. This lecture will help bring these aspects in context to new molecular and computational tools that have been invented to study complex microbial communities. New high-throughput sequencing technologies have dramatically democratized the access to complex information about thousands of different microbial environments around the world. On the same path, researchers have invested lots of time and other resources to develop useful open-source freely-available computational tools that even people outside of Computational Sciences can use and exploit. Lastly, many respected scientists frequently organize Simposiums and other academic events so we can share with others, both young and more experienced academicians, the excitement of studying microbial life forms in the environment. In Environmental Microbiology, the scientific community get a chance to embark on a exciting Journey to all the great aspects of environmental microbial communities.