Applications are warmly invited for a summer school on Microbial Specialised Metabolites: Ecology, Evolution and Applications, the ninth in the series of John Innes – Rudjer Bošković Summer Schools on Applied Molecular Microbiology, to be held in Dubrovnik, Croatia, September 10-17, 2022.

Full details, including the availability of grants to attend the summer school, can be found here.

These summer schools are intended primarily for scientists at post-graduate and early post-doctoral level, or early career industrial scientists, but some junior faculty may also qualify. Over the years, these week-long courses have established a reputation for the quality of the faculty and participants (around 45), and a high degree of productive interaction.

The summer schools focus on the continuing interest in microbial metabolites that expanded dramatically with the sequencing of the genomes of small molecule-producing microorganisms, enabled by advances in sequencing technology, bioinformatics and chemical analysis. Ecological developments highlighting the wide range of roles for small molecules in microbial communities are also covered, as is the evolution of biosynthetic gene clusters and pathways. The course brings together young scientists from around the world with diverse backgrounds, including molecular microbiology, chemistry, microbial ecology and bioinformatics, to share information that can lead to inter-disciplinary approaches to understanding and exploiting microbial metabolite production. The summer school will include hands-on computational analysis of natural product gene clusters as well as small group discussions on topics chosen by the participants.