On July 9, the X Congress organized by the FEMS was held in the picturesque German city of Hamburg, where three of our PhD students (Héctor Carmona, Arnau Pérez and Javier Barriga) attended. They presented two posters as well as an oral communication by Hector, which was selected for a summary of the highlights of the congress published in the prestigious journal The Lancet Microbe.

On July 9, the tenth congress organized by FEMS was held in the picturesque German city of Hamburg.

The Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS) is an organization that seeks to coordinate 56 microbiological societies from 40 different countries. Among them is the Spanish Society of Microbiology, or SEM, to which most of the members of our laboratory belong. Among other things, the FEMS promotes the research of European scientists in microbiology through courses, fellowships and events such as the biannual congress.

Specifically, the meeting in Hamburg was planned for 2020, but had to be delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, this year's motto was "reconnect". Reconnect the different aspects of microbiology. Reconnect European scientists with microbiology groups beyond FEMS who also attended. More importantly: to reconnect the people who do this in an exciting and enriching multicultural experience.

First of all, there was an opening speech by the president, Hilary Lappin-Scott, who gave a very motivating speech especially aimed at a large part of the attendees who, like us, were attending a congress of this magnitude for the first time. Afterwards, Dr. Rita Colwell, author of more than 700 scientific articles and with more than 40 honorary awards, gave a keynote plenary talk on the dangers of climate change on diseases such as cholera and the importance of establishing pathogen surveillance systems as has already happened with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Finally, there was a fun music performance by a local music trio and a snack that served to reconnect people.

The following days were even more interesting. First thing in the morning, each day there were plenaries of relevant scientists within the FEMS that invited you to want to know more about their respective topics. The plenaries were followed by several simultaneous talks on different topics ranging from clinical, synthetic biology, ecosystem characterization, food safety or bioremediation (a discipline that seeks to counteract contamination with organisms). There were also, between the breaks to establish new contacts, meetings organized by the FEMS to deal with very important current social issues: politics, dissemination, first steps in the scientific career... And of course, there was also a space dedicated to the presentation of numerous posters during sessions designed to interact and exchange ideas. The sponsoring companies also played an important role in the congress, as they had different stands to present their products to the attendees.

Our guys didn't just go to listen to other scientists talk. Arnau, who was awarded with an assistance grant, presented his poster on Monday about the new technique being developed in our group based on a sensor able to detect Vibrio vulnificus in a fast and efficient way. Javier also had the opportunity to present his poster on a detection method, in this case based on a PCR to detect strains of Vibrio harveyi dangerous for fishes. Hector gave a short talk on Vibrio metoecus, a recently described bacterium that caused the death of a patient in the Valencian Community. The latter was selected for a summary with the highlights of the congress published in the prestigious journal The Lancet Microbe.

Undoubtedly, it was an enriching experience that served not only to publicize our work but also to capture new ideas and establish new links that will lead to future collaborations. For all these reasons, we strongly recommend all people who research in microbiology or who are simply interested in the subject to attend the FEMS congresses. You can see a very summarized video here.

For more information on events like this, you can consult the FEMS website.