Environmental microbiology interfaces with a number of different subspecialties, including soil, aquatic, and aeromicrobiology, as well as bioremediation, water quality, occupational health and infection control, food safety, and industrial microbiology. The roots of environmental microbiology are perhaps most closely related to the field of microbial ecology, which comprises the study of the interaction of microorganisms within an environment, be it air, water, or soil, the primary difference between these two fields is that environmental microbiology is an applied field in which the driving question is, how can we use our understanding of microorganisms in the environment to benefit society? The overall objective of the lecture is to define the important microorganisms involved in environmental microbiology, the nature of the different possible environments in which they are situated, the methodologies used to monitor microorganisms and their activities, and finally the possible effects of microorganisms on human activities

Lectures

1. Microbial electrolysis cells (4 weeks)
Microbial electrolysis cells (MECs) are devices that harness the energy and protons produced by microbes breaking down organic matter, combined with an additional small electric current, to produce hydrogen. This technology is very new, and researchers are working on improving many aspects of the system, from finding lower-cost materials to identifying the most effective type of microbes to use.
2. Microbial Diversity and Evolution (2 weeks)
The lecture will give an overview of the immense microbial diversity found on Earth and the importance of microbes to evolution and current environmental health.
3. Microbes vs Metals (2 weeks)
Metals play a key role in our daily lives and affect everything from healthcare to industrialisation and our culture. Covering topics including metal resistance, biomineralization, sulfate remediation, synthetic biology, bacterial bioremediation, biorecycling, microbial adaptation, and fungal diversity, the articles in this collection demonstrate the unique and complex relationship between microbes and metals.
4. Sustainable Agriculture (3 weeks)
The lecture explores sustainable agriculture by diving into the interactions between common crops and their microbiomes. Our speakers will demonstrate how modern sequencing techniques can reveal how plant microbiomes influence the postharvest pathogens and storability of crops, the root and soil rhizosphere, and plant performance. This knowledge on the soil and plant microbiota of various crops has applications in developing agricultural management practices for sustainable crop production.
5. Pathogens (3 weeks)
The lecture includes: (1) What Distinguishes a Pathogen from a Non-Pathogen? (2) Community Behavior of an Extracellular Pathogen (3) Designing and mining pathogen genome databases (4) Designing and mining pathogen genome databases
6. Computational and Systems Biology (4 weeks)
The lecture includes: (1) Introduction to Computational and Systems Biology (2) Local Alignment (BLAST) and Statistics (3) A gentle introduction to RNA-seq (4) Approaches, Methods and Challenges in Microbiome research (5) statistics lectures