BISMiS Live is our monthly seminar series, held online and scheduled for the third Saturday of each month, starting March 2021. The aim of the series is to reach out to microbiology students and early career scientists with an interest in microbial ecology and systematics. These interactive sessions with expert scientists from across the globe will foster interest in microbial systematics and the diversity and ecology of microbes in our world.

Registration: Click Here to register for all sessions at once.

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for the Live Stream and concluded sessions.

Archived Sessions

2021 2022 2023

Speaker: Prof. Svetlana Dedysh, Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, RUSSIA

Title of the Talk: Creating a bridge between microbial taxonomists and ecologists: Some options to increase the value of a microorganism description.

Biosketch: Svetlana N. Dedysh received her PhD in 1990 from The Moscow State University and joined the Laboratory of Soil Microbiology and Biokinetics at the Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, where she started her research on methane oxidizing bacteria in northern wetlands. This research was carried out in a close collaboration with the Center for Microbial Ecology at The Michigan State University, USA, and the Max-Planck-Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Germany. In 2005, Svetlana N. Dedysh defended her Doctoral dissertation on acidophilic methanotrophic bacteria. Since 2008, she is the head of the laboratory of Molecular ecology and phylogenomics of bacteria at the Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, Research Center of Biotechnology of Russian Academy of Science. Her main field of research is the microbiology of northern wetlands and bacterial systematics. Areas of research expertise are: 1) biology, diversity and ecology of methane-oxidizing bacteria; 2) characterization of bacteria from poorly studied phyla – Acidobacteria and Planctomycetes; 3) microbial diversity in Sphagnum-dominated wetlands; 4) cultivation, genome analysis and taxonomic description of novel bacteria. She is an author of more than 170 research and review articles (Scopus Profile). Since 2014, she is a trustee of Bergey's Manual Trust and one of the editors of Bergey’s Manual of Systematics of Archaea and Bacteria. She was appointed as a member of the International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes (ICSP) and served as a member of the Judicial Commission of ICSP in 2014-2023. She is also an ambassador of the International Society for Microbial Ecology (ISME) in Russian Federation.

Recorded Session: Watch Here

Speaker: Prof. Phil Hugenholtz, The University of Queensland, Australia

Title of the Talk: The Genome Taxonomy Database in 2024: Challenges & Opportunities

Biosketch: Phil Hugenholtz is a microbiologist who has focused his career on sequence-based culture-independent analysis of microorganisms. Career highlights include the discovery and characterisation of several previously unrecognised major archaeal and bacterial lineages, and development of sequence-based taxonomic databases for prokaryotes, firstly using the 16S rRNA gene (Greengenes) and more recently using genome sequences (Genome Taxonomy Database).

Reecorded Session: Watch Here

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Nelson Lima, Micoteca da Universidade do Minho, Portugal

Title of the Talk: From Culture Collections to the microBiological Resource Centres (mBRC): evolution, networks and challenges in a globalized world

Biosketch: Nelson Lima got his Ph.D. in Engineering Sciences (Biotechnology) from the University of Minho (Braga, Portugal) and in 2004 he was appointed Full Professor at the University of Minho. His primary research is related to food and environmental mycology with the integration of polyphasic approaches, including mycotoxins, for fungal identification. Since 1996 he has been the head of the Micoteca da Universidade do Minho (MUM) fungal culture collection and currently, he was the President of ECCO/European Culture Collections’ Organisation from 2013 to 2019. Previously he served, as a Collection Officer on the ECCO Board, and then the World Federation of Culture Collection Executive Board. He is an Invited Professor at different Brazilian Universities and Milan-Bicocca University in Italy. He was the coordinator of IS_MIRRI21 European project and was responsible for hosting the MIRRI statutory seat in Portugal (UMinho). He is one of the leaders of the Portuguese Microbiological Resource Centre Network and the National Node Coordinator of MIRRI- ERIC. He has long experience as an international evaluator of diverse international funding agencies, in outstanding scientific journals (where has been also associate editor), in led and been a partner of several European, Brazilian, and other International research projects, as well as participating in working groups from OECD, FAO, EU, etc. So far, he has mentored 21 post-doc researchers and supervised 27 PhD and 35 MSc theses. Currently, he supervises 4 PhD thesis. He published more than 400 publications and presented more than 600 conferences and communications. In 2016, he was granted the title of Professor Honoris Causa by the University Federal of Pernambuco (Recife, Brazil). More recently, a new fungal species was named in recognition of his contribution to the mycology field with Penicillium limae.

Registration Link: Click Here

Team A

Speaker: TBD

Biosketch: Being prepared.

Speaker: TBD

Biosketch: Being prepared

Team B

Speaker: TBD

Biosketch: Being prepared.

Speaker: TBD

Biosketch: Being prepared

Registration: Coming soon

Speaker: Prof. Cobus M Visagie, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Title of the Talk: Eurotiales taxonomy: creating a strong base to explore species diversity

Biosketch: Professor Cobus M. Visagie is a researcher at the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI) at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He earned his Ph.D. from Stellenbosch University in 2012, followed by postdoctoral positions at the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute and the Ottawa Research and Development Centre – Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. His research focuses primarily on Aspergillus, Penicillium, Talaromyces, and other molds, delving into their biodiversity, ecology, phylogenetics, nomenclature, taxonomy, and identification. He places special emphasis on conducting taxonomically robust ecological and biodiversity studies. Professor Visagie has contributed significantly to the field, publishing 64 peer-reviewed articles on these topics. Notably, he made a pivotal impact on the international mycological community by creating and curating 'accepted species' lists for Aspergillus, Penicillium, and Talaromyces. Before these groundbreaking publications, identifying species within these genera presented substantial challenges. In addition to his research, he serves on the editorial boards of Studies in Mycology, Mycological Progress, and Fungal Systematics and Evolution (FUSE). Furthermore, he holds elected memberships in the International Commission on the Taxonomy of Fungi (ICTF) and the International Commission on Penicillium and Aspergillus (ICPA).

Registration Link: Coming soon