Conference “Microbiome and Us – in Health and Disease”, within the CIVIS “Cups & Cakes” Web Seminars

On Monday, July 12, 2021, CIVIS organizes the conference “Microbiome and Us – in Health and Disease”. The event, part of the “Cups & Cakes” Web Seminars, will take place between 10:00-11:00 (CET) on Zoom.

Speaker within conference is Grațiela Grădișteanu, researcher at the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest.

The seminar starts from the premise that microbiota is not just a collection of microorganisms that inhabit us, but a pivotal player for our health. Imbalances in the microbiota (also known as dysbiosis) are triggered by a multitude of factors including diet, pathological conditions (i.e., diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, cancer etc.), antibiotic intake, infections, stress and other environmental factors. In this talk, I will present experimental evidence for the role of microbiota in protecting against enteric infection, the impact of Western diet on microbiome and infection susceptibility as well as insights into the microbiome patterns in type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

Grațiela (Pîrcălăbioru) Grădișteanu is a Research Fellow at ICUB and has been actively involved in several national and international projects as project director: Composite hydrogels based on inorganic nanoparticles and collagen with prolonged antimicrobial activity for the prevention of wound infections (2016-2018), Knowledge transfer in polymers used for biomedical engineering (2018-2019), ManuNet Horizon 2020- New textiles for parietal defects (2019-2021), Advanced techniques for early SARS-CoV2 detection (2020-2021), Type 2 Diabetes: a multi-omic view on host NAPH oxidases and gut microbiota (2021-2023).

Main research focuses:  microbiome changes in diabetes and metabolic syndrome, in vivo and ex-vivo investigation of host-pathogen crosstalk during the infectious process, oxidative stress in health and disease, assessment of the antimicrobial activity of novel antimicrobial compounds, biomaterials and tissue engineering, SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic and omic technologies.

About CIVIS “Cups & Cakes” Web Seminars

CIVIS has been established as a University that reaches from the local level to the international dimension, focused on responding to local needs, contributing to regional development strategies and addressing global challenges. The development of Research and Innovation (R&I), as an integral component of its educational mission, has been part of the CIVIS mission from the very beginning.

It is in this perspective that RIS4CIVIS has been elaborated and now operates. The overall objective is to produce an integrated, long-term R&I Strategy that, will over time enable the constituent members of the CIVIS European University to seamlessly integrate their know-how, expertise and resources in the service of Research and Innovation that effectively addresses current and future societal challenges, at local, regional and international level.

As part of the activities developed to reach this objective, the Cups&Cakes meetings aim to create a discussion forum for researchers to connect and get an overview of what is happening in other partner universities on a specific topic. In the longer term, these exchanges also aim to foster exchanges and develop potential collaborations within the CIVIS Alliance.

These Cups&Cakes will be scheduled for one hour and will consist of two phases:

– A 40-minutes presentation of current research work chosen by the speaker (including a 5-minute introduction of general expertise and work in progress within the university on the topic of interest).

– Open discussion of about 20 minutes.

These meetings will take place on Mondays every two weeks from 10h00 to 11h00. Each partner University, in turns, will have the opportunity to present to the CIVIS Community a subject of their research. The first opportunity for the ULB will be on Monday 14 June.”

More details about the events organized within CIVIS “Cups & Cakes” Web Seminars and about registration for each of this events are available here.