Research staff of the University of Valencia explain in fourteen institutes the global antibiotic crisis

  • Scientific Culture and Innovation Unit
  • December 13rd, 2019
 
Belén Fouz and Sergi Maicas.
Belén Fouz and Sergi Maicas.

The DivulSuperBac Service Learning project, coordinated by Belén Fouz and Sergi Maicas, professors at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Valencia starts Friday in La Llosa de Ranes. It is an itinerant exhibition that will reach thirteen more Valencian municipalities and that warns of a scenario of health and economic crisis caused by the proliferation of bacterial strains resistant to a large part of existing antibiotics.

This situation occurs in a context in which the therapeutic arsenal does not increase in parallel. Infections cause 700,000 deaths annually and are expected to exceed 10 million by 2050.

DivulSuperBac is one of the activities of the international consortiums Small World Initiative, TinyEarth and Micromundo, and of which the University of Valencia is a member, and that are endorsed by the Spanish Society of Microbiology and the American Society of Microbiology.

The exhibition, consisting of fourteen information panels, was presented during the World Antibiotic Awareness Week promoted by the World Health Organisation this November. In the exhibition, students of the Faculty of Biology (degree in Biology and Master in Research in Molecular, Cellular and Genetic Biology) will act as curators of the exhibitions, which will have a weekly frequency and will be complemented with other scientific dissemination activities related to this theme.

Among others, the sample will reach high schools in Algemesí, Burjassot, Castelló de la Plana, Llíria, Moncada, Museros, Paterna and Valencia.

The DivulSuperBac Service Learning project is partially funded by the Permanent Training and Educational Innovation Service (PID19-1096021) and has the collaboration of the Equality, Language Policy and Scientific Culture units of the University of Valencia.

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