Our department and the Microbiome Sciences group of Christina Warinner at the MPI-EVA hosted the first colloquium within the funding period of the Werner-Siemens-Stiftung (WSS) under the theme “Microbiome functional evolution: past to present”. The foundation has enabled the set-up of the first research unit for paleobiotechnology. The colloquium took place as a public lecture and open post-lecture coffee break. The lectures were given by three speakers of the research areas archaeogenomics, metagenomics, computational biology, and natural product biosynthesis.
Invitation of three experts in the field
The main scientific contributions for the event were provided by our three invited speakers:
- Dr. Katerina Guschanski from the University of Edinburgh, UK
- Dr. Antonio Fernandez-Guerra from the University of Copenhagen, DK
- Prof. Nadine Ziemert from the University of Tübingen, DE
Their lectures were framing the starting point of the discussions about the future integration of ancient DNA, microbes, and natural product discovery. In a post-lecture coffee break people were continuing discussions and debating questions and ideas for future research in microbial paleogenomics.
