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Microbiology can make a great contribution to the new direction of global politics

Microbiology can make a great contribution to the new direction of global politics Sorlini Annals of Microbiology (2020) 70:64 Annals of Microbiology https://doi.org/10.1186/s13213-020-01609-1 EDITORIAL Open Access Microbiology can make a great contribution to the new direction of global politics Claudia Sorlini Keywords: Global politics, Climate change, Non-renewable energy sources Our planet is currently being challenged by climate change waste products that can re-enter the biogeochemical cy- which is causing severe consequences on the environment, cles (Cavicchioli et al., 2019;Timmiset al., 2019). economy, and social wellbeing. The main cause is the use Currently, microorganisms are used in a large number of non-renewable energy sources, used in all anthropogenic of activities both in primary and secondary production activities. To this emergency, the problems of pollution are (biocides, bioinoculants, food processing, improvement added. In particular, plastics that invade the planet are the of food quality, production of bioactive molecules, bioe- most blatant phenomenon, and the nonsensical use of nat- nergy, cell factories, plant biofertilizers, etc.) and ser- ural resources including water is also highly responsible. vices (soil bioremediation, water purification, etc.). The United Nations Organization is so convinced of the Research could certainly broaden the fields of microbial need for all countries to face the transition towards a sus- application and improve efficiency and product quality. tainable development model that it has dedicated to this For instance, it is estimated that an increase in the effi- aim the 2030 Agenda launched in 2015. The 2030 ciency of symbiotic nitrogen fixation can result in sav- Agenda is articulated in the "17 Sustainable Develop- ings of 1067 million dollars per year in the USA alone in ment Goals" (https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelop- the purchase of nitrogen fertilizers and a drastic reduc- ment/sustainable-development-goals/). The European tion of greenhouse gas emissions (Seshadri et al., 2015). Parliament, with the recently approved Green Deal strat- A similar rationale could be applied to pesticides, bio- egy (2020), is also showing a strong commitment in the plastics, production of bioactive molecules for food, same direction (https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/prior- nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, etc. ities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en). Changing strat- Greater investment should also be directed to research egy is possible only under certain conditions, one of into harmful and pathogenic microorganisms, given the which, absolutely necessary, is represented by an extraor- importance they can assume, as in the case of the pan- dinary effort to support basic and applied scientific re- demic we are now experiencing dramatically. In general, search. Unfortunately, this support is in short supply in however, greater attention is needed towards the world many countries. of infinitely small organisms, but which, as demon- In this context, microbiology can make a great contribu- strated, for better or worse, can be decisive in the life of tion to the new direction of global politics. The processes, humans, animals, plants, and the planet. of which the microorganisms are the driving force, require Collaboration between researchers is essential for un- a lower energy input than similar processes carried out derstanding the complexity of natural and anthropogenic chemically. In addition, these processes take place accord- phenomena. Consequently, Annals of Microbiology has ing to natural pathways, thus producing marketable and decided to be available in the open access form since 2020. The editorial board was inspired by the same mo- Correspondence: ClaudiaSorlini@fondazionecariplo.it tivation this journal had when it was born 80 years ago. Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Sorlini Annals of Microbiology (2020) 70:64 Page 2 of 3 Fig. 1 The first volume of the journal It offered a space in which researchers could make Author’s contributions The author read and approved the final manuscript. openly known their scientific acquisitions and contact each other to access information and knowledge. This Competing interests function has never failed, not even in the years of the The author declares that she has no competing interests. Second World War, during which the journal continued Received: 7 November 2020 Accepted: 11 November 2020 to be published. In 1999, the journal, born in 1940 as Annali di Micro- biologia (Fig. 1), took on its current name and a more References marked international dimension. For 80 years, it has CavicchioliR,Ripple WJ, Timmis KN,AzamF,Bakken LR, Baylis M, Behrenfeld given thousands of researchers the opportunity to pub- MJ, Boetius A, Boyd PW, Classen AT, Crowther TW, Danovaro R, Foreman CM,Huisman J, Hutchins DA,Jansson JK,KarlDM, Koskella B, Mark lish, thanks also to the painstaking and competent work WelchDB, MartinyJBH,Moran MA,OrphanVJ, Reay DS,Remais JV, Rich of several thousand reviewers whose generous support VI, Singh BK, Stein LY, Stewart FJ, Sullivan MB, van Oppen MJH, Weaver never failed. Together with the current Editor-in-Chief, I SC, Webb EA, Webster NS (2019) Scientists’ warning to humanity: microorganisms and climate change. Nat Rev Microbiol 17:596–586. would like to express my gratitude and my warmest https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-019-0222-5 thanks to them and to the members of the international https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en. editorial boards who have succeeded one another, with Accessed 7 Nov 2020. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/. the hope that the journal will continue to satisfy the Accessed 7 Nov 2020. greater and greater need for excellent quality and Seshadri R, Reeve WG, Ardley JK, Tennessen K, Woyke T, Kyrpides NC, Ivanova NN innovation in science. (2015) Discovery of novel plant interaction determinants from the genomes Sorlini Annals of Microbiology (2020) 70:64 Page 3 of 3 of 163 root nodule bacteria. Sci Rep 5:16825. https://doi.org/10.1038/ srep16825 Timmis K, Cavicchioli R, Garcia JL, Nogales B, Chavarría M, Stein L, McGenity TJ, Webster N, Singh BK, Handelsman J, de Lorenzo V, Pruzzo C, Timmis J, Ramos Martín JL, Verstraete W, Jetten M, Danchin A, Huang W, Gilbert J, Lal R, Santos H, Yup Lee S, Sessitsch A, Bonfante P, Gram L, Lin RTP, Ron E, Ceren Karahan Z, Roelof van der Meer J, Artunkal S, Jahn D, Harper L (2019) The urgent need for microbiology literacy in society. Environ Microbiol 21:1513–1528. https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.14611 Publisher’sNote Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Annals of Microbiology Springer Journals

Microbiology can make a great contribution to the new direction of global politics

Sorlini, Claudia
Annals of Microbiology , Volume 70 (1) – Nov 23, 2020
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Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020
ISSN
1590-4261
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1869-2044
DOI
10.1186/s13213-020-01609-1
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Abstract

Sorlini Annals of Microbiology (2020) 70:64 Annals of Microbiology https://doi.org/10.1186/s13213-020-01609-1 EDITORIAL Open Access Microbiology can make a great contribution to the new direction of global politics Claudia Sorlini Keywords: Global politics, Climate change, Non-renewable energy sources Our planet is currently being challenged by climate change waste products that can re-enter the biogeochemical cy- which is causing severe consequences on the environment, cles (Cavicchioli et al., 2019;Timmiset al., 2019). economy, and social wellbeing. The main cause is the use Currently, microorganisms are used in a large number of non-renewable energy sources, used in all anthropogenic of activities both in primary and secondary production activities. To this emergency, the problems of pollution are (biocides, bioinoculants, food processing, improvement added. In particular, plastics that invade the planet are the of food quality, production of bioactive molecules, bioe- most blatant phenomenon, and the nonsensical use of nat- nergy, cell factories, plant biofertilizers, etc.) and ser- ural resources including water is also highly responsible. vices (soil bioremediation, water purification, etc.). The United Nations Organization is so convinced of the Research could certainly broaden the fields of microbial need for all countries to face the transition towards a sus- application and improve efficiency and product quality. tainable development model that it has dedicated to this For instance, it is estimated that an increase in the effi- aim the 2030 Agenda launched in 2015. The 2030 ciency of symbiotic nitrogen fixation can result in sav- Agenda is articulated in the "17 Sustainable Develop- ings of 1067 million dollars per year in the USA alone in ment Goals" (https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelop- the purchase of nitrogen fertilizers and a drastic reduc- ment/sustainable-development-goals/). The European tion of greenhouse gas emissions (Seshadri et al., 2015). Parliament, with the recently approved Green Deal strat- A similar rationale could be applied to pesticides, bio- egy (2020), is also showing a strong commitment in the plastics, production of bioactive molecules for food, same direction (https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/prior- nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, etc. ities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en). Changing strat- Greater investment should also be directed to research egy is possible only under certain conditions, one of into harmful and pathogenic microorganisms, given the which, absolutely necessary, is represented by an extraor- importance they can assume, as in the case of the pan- dinary effort to support basic and applied scientific re- demic we are now experiencing dramatically. In general, search. Unfortunately, this support is in short supply in however, greater attention is needed towards the world many countries. of infinitely small organisms, but which, as demon- In this context, microbiology can make a great contribu- strated, for better or worse, can be decisive in the life of tion to the new direction of global politics. The processes, humans, animals, plants, and the planet. of which the microorganisms are the driving force, require Collaboration between researchers is essential for un- a lower energy input than similar processes carried out derstanding the complexity of natural and anthropogenic chemically. In addition, these processes take place accord- phenomena. Consequently, Annals of Microbiology has ing to natural pathways, thus producing marketable and decided to be available in the open access form since 2020. The editorial board was inspired by the same mo- Correspondence: ClaudiaSorlini@fondazionecariplo.it tivation this journal had when it was born 80 years ago. Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Sorlini Annals of Microbiology (2020) 70:64 Page 2 of 3 Fig. 1 The first volume of the journal It offered a space in which researchers could make Author’s contributions The author read and approved the final manuscript. openly known their scientific acquisitions and contact each other to access information and knowledge. This Competing interests function has never failed, not even in the years of the The author declares that she has no competing interests. Second World War, during which the journal continued Received: 7 November 2020 Accepted: 11 November 2020 to be published. In 1999, the journal, born in 1940 as Annali di Micro- biologia (Fig. 1), took on its current name and a more References marked international dimension. For 80 years, it has CavicchioliR,Ripple WJ, Timmis KN,AzamF,Bakken LR, Baylis M, Behrenfeld given thousands of researchers the opportunity to pub- MJ, Boetius A, Boyd PW, Classen AT, Crowther TW, Danovaro R, Foreman CM,Huisman J, Hutchins DA,Jansson JK,KarlDM, Koskella B, Mark lish, thanks also to the painstaking and competent work WelchDB, MartinyJBH,Moran MA,OrphanVJ, Reay DS,Remais JV, Rich of several thousand reviewers whose generous support VI, Singh BK, Stein LY, Stewart FJ, Sullivan MB, van Oppen MJH, Weaver never failed. Together with the current Editor-in-Chief, I SC, Webb EA, Webster NS (2019) Scientists’ warning to humanity: microorganisms and climate change. Nat Rev Microbiol 17:596–586. would like to express my gratitude and my warmest https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-019-0222-5 thanks to them and to the members of the international https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en. editorial boards who have succeeded one another, with Accessed 7 Nov 2020. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/. the hope that the journal will continue to satisfy the Accessed 7 Nov 2020. greater and greater need for excellent quality and Seshadri R, Reeve WG, Ardley JK, Tennessen K, Woyke T, Kyrpides NC, Ivanova NN innovation in science. (2015) Discovery of novel plant interaction determinants from the genomes Sorlini Annals of Microbiology (2020) 70:64 Page 3 of 3 of 163 root nodule bacteria. Sci Rep 5:16825. https://doi.org/10.1038/ srep16825 Timmis K, Cavicchioli R, Garcia JL, Nogales B, Chavarría M, Stein L, McGenity TJ, Webster N, Singh BK, Handelsman J, de Lorenzo V, Pruzzo C, Timmis J, Ramos Martín JL, Verstraete W, Jetten M, Danchin A, Huang W, Gilbert J, Lal R, Santos H, Yup Lee S, Sessitsch A, Bonfante P, Gram L, Lin RTP, Ron E, Ceren Karahan Z, Roelof van der Meer J, Artunkal S, Jahn D, Harper L (2019) The urgent need for microbiology literacy in society. Environ Microbiol 21:1513–1528. https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.14611 Publisher’sNote Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Annals of Microbiology – Springer Journals

Published: Nov 23, 2020

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