During the week of 7-11 October 2024, NDPIA organized its third course on microbiota and health that was held at Stora Brännbo in Sigtuna. As previous years, this course introduced the field of microbiomes with a focus on how microbiota affect the health of a host.  

“This course exceeded my expectations. I was astonished by the thorough literature analysis performed by the lecturers to pinpoint the most essential information.” 

-Anonymous participant 

Seventeen national and international experts in the microbiome field, including Christine Moissl-Eichinger (Medical University Graz), Fredrik Bäckhed (University of Gothenburg), and Reetta Satokari (University of Helsinki) presented lectures and held engaged discussions on their topics. Areas covered include microbiota associated with the human gut, genitourinary tract, and mouth, interactions of the microbiota with the immune system, mucins and drugs and present-day trends on modifying the microbiota. 

The Microbiota and Health course of 2024 offered a new segment in the schedule as two workshop sessions on microbiome data analysis were included. These were led by Luisa Hugerth, assistant professor at Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, and covered the topic on how to retrieve, annotate, and analyse metabarcoding data in R.  

In addition to the lectures, course participants had the opportunity to present and discuss their own research with participants and lecturers during poster sessions and free time. As always during a NDPIA course, plenty of time was also dedicated to social activities to promote interactions and networking.  

“The main strengths of the course I would say is the broad range of topics the different speakers covered. I learned a lot, perhaps the most, from the speakers that were in a different field than my own. Not only things that are just interesting, but also things I think I can apply in my own projects. The fact that the speakers were some of the top ones in their own field is also a major strength.”  

-Anonymous participant 

To see the full course program, please visit:  Microbiota and Health 2024 | NDPIA

Many thanks to the organizing committee:  

In May 2024, NDPIA offered a newly developed course on AI applications in infection biology. This course was held on 20-24 May at Rånäs Slott, Rånäs. 

“The aim of this course was to introduce infection biologists to the often abstract and overwhelming idea of using AI in their research. By offering concrete examples of how to implement these tools, students gain confidence to apply these approaches in their own research projects.” 

-Debra Milton, NDPIA National Director

With the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), powerful tools are now available to analyze and to interpret complex biological data to enhance our understanding and combating of infectious diseases. We had eleven national and international experts in the field to introduce participants to AI methods used to predict disease outbreaks, to predict antibiotic resistance of pathogens, to survey pathogens and antibiotic resistance in the environment, to decipher host-pathogen interactions, to aid the development of new antimicrobials and to use AI responsibly. 

“This was a fantastic course. Very useful and helpful to get such a thorough insight into this repidly developing field, and getting to know people active in it. I would highly recommend this course!”

-Anonymous participant 

Integrating knowledge from multiple disciplines will be necessary to address many questions within infection biology. However, taking the first step to implement these tools in research projects can be daunting. Therefore, we also included three workshops in this course with concrete examples which was much appreciated by the students. The workshops were focused on the AlphaFold AI system, SIAMCAT metagenomic data analysis and scientific automation. 

We aim to initiate discussions and collaborations across these disciplines, and the beautiful scenery of this venue ensured a relaxed atmosphere and many networking opportunities. The weather allowed poster sessions to be held both outdoors and indoors, with lively discussions also during break times. In addition, students and lecturers were engaged in several social activities including different games and utilizing the sauna and pools by the lake.  

“Overall, the lecturers were very inclusive and interested in questions and discussions. Much appreciated!”

-Anonymous participant 

“Very nice structure of the course! I could on the later course days understand things thanks to the previous days lectures, which had not made sense to me otherwise. So a nice escalation through the course, which made it very useful.”

-Anonymous participant 

To see the full course program, please visit:  AI Applications in Infection Biology Course 2024 | NDPIA

Many thanks to the organizing committee:

The third NDPIA course on antibiotics and antibiotic resistance was held at Stora Brännbo in Sigtuna during 15-19 of April 2024. 

Antibiotic resistance is a global public health concern that threatens the use of modern medical therapies to fight infectious diseases. This course introduces antibiotic resistance from a microbial perspective and from a clinical – One Health perspective. We had 18 national and international experts within the field giving an up-to-date overview on the modes of action of antibiotics and how microbes resist the effects of antibiotics, on diagnostic methods to detect known and novel resistance genes, on the origins of resistance genes and the biological cost of resistance for the microbe, and on new antibiotic development and alternative therapeutics for infectious disease.  

“The range of topics in this course was great, and really helped me to get a comprehensive understanding on all the aspects of AMR (antimicrobial resistance).”

-Anonymous participant

In addition, the effects of human behaviour on antibiotic resistance management and methods to communicate awareness and understanding of antibiotic resistance was also discussed. The lectures were combined with three poster sessions enabling the participants to discuss their own research with fellows and lecturers.  

“The strength of this course is the diverse research focus of lecturers and participants! Combining great lecturers and interesting topics in an informal setting really fostered open communication and sharing of ideas.”

-Anonymous participant

To see the full course program, please visit:  Antibiotics and Antibiotic Resistance Course 2024 | NDPIA

This new NDPIA course on fundamentals of basic and applied phage biology was held at Lund University during 23-28 of April 2023.  

Bacteriophages are bacterial viruses and the most diverse and abundant of all organisms on Earth. Through their coexistence with bacteria, phages modify bacterial communities by altering bacterial numbers, physiology, diversity, and virulence. This NDPIA course introduced students to the intriguing but complex interactions between phages and bacteria.  

We had eleven national and international experts in phage research presenting a comprehensive theoretical overview of fundamental and applied phage biology, covering topics such as phage diversity and classification, phage diversity in environments from the human gut to the ocean, ecological roles of phages, phage-bacteria interactions and anti-phage immunity systems, and development of phage-based treatments of bacterial infections. 

“I really appreciated the networking opportunities during this course. It was very nice that lecturers joined the dinners, and the overall social atmosphere led to open and vivid discussions.”  

-Anonymous participant 

 

The lectures were complemented with hands-on experimental phage techniques. Techniques performed by the students included phage isolation from environmental samples, determination of the phage titre, performing phage infectivity/immunity assays, and isolation of spontaneous mutant phages through selection.  

“The combination of covering vast amounts of knowledge both basic, cutting edge and applied, along with conducting real research during lab exercises all meant that the course was insanely productive while also being fun!”

-Anonymous participant

Students were performing lab work at Lund University to isolate phages and escape mutants. Photo: Vasili Hauryliuk and Rodrigo Ibarra Chaves. 

To see the full course program, please visit:  Fundamentals of Basic and Applied Phage Biology | NDPIA

The second NDPIA course on microbiota and health was held during the week of 14-18 of November 2022. Following the first microbiota and health course which was held online in 2020, the NDPIA organization was happy to be able to arrange this course at Aspenäs Herrgård in Lerum, Gothenburg. 

Microbiota are diverse microbial communities associated with multicellular organisms. These communities of microbes and their genomes, the microbiome, affect physiological processes of the host. Understanding how microbiota interact with a host is critical to understand the host biology and host susceptibility to infectious and chronic diseases and host responses to drugs.  

We had twenty-two national and international lecturers sharing their expertise in the microbiome field, and dedicating time for fruitful discussions with course participants. This course aims to provide a broad knowledge considering different research fields within the microbiome, while also providing details about each topic and their cutting-edge research. Topics covered were microbiota diversity, methods used to study microbiomes, microbiota associated with hosts, such as humans and animals, the role of microbiota in human health and disease, effects of diet and age on the microbiota, interactions of the microbiota with the immune system, mucins and drugs, host-bacterial mutualism and development of symbioses, collaboration and competition in the host microbiome, and present day trends on modifying the microbiota.  

“The size and focus of the course were perfect! I particularly liked that a lot of time was allocated for discussions and questions, and plenty of time to discuss with everyone about their posters.” 

-Anonymous participant  

The lectures were combined with poster sessions enabling the participants to present and discuss their own research with fellows and lecturers.  In addition, free time was provided for, social activities, informal discussions and to build national and international scientific networks with participants and lecturers. 

“Good organization of the course, great talks, great networking opportunities and I have several new ideas to apply into my own project!” 

-Anonymous participant  

To see the full course program, please visit:  Microbiota and Health 2022 | NDPIA