IMD in Spain

Discover the Invisible World: Microbes Take Over Our Faculty!

When: 17 September 2025

Time: 09:00 - 14:00

Event Location: Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sevilla

Event Description

This year, we are excited to participate in this event for the first time!

Although our involvement will be modest, professors and PhD students from the Department of Microbiology and Parasitology at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Seville (around 15 participants), are eager to engage with students.

The Faculty’s entrance hall, a spacious and welcoming area, will be decorated with giant representations of microorganisms to attract attention.

We will set up two themed tables: one in red, representing Gram-negative bacteria, and another in purple, representing Gram-positive bacteria. Both tables will feature posters of microorganisms and decorated with matching red and purple balloons.

Petri dishes and sterile swabs will be available for students to inoculate samples from anywhere they choose—since microorganisms are everywhere—and take the plates home. Thanks to Seville’s still-high ambient temperatures, we expect the plates to show impressive microbial growth by the next day.
Small informational leaflets will also be distributed, with short messages about the beneficial effects of microorganisms, including examples such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae in beer production and Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus in yogurt making.

Students will be encouraged to share their results on social media, using hashtags #InternationalMicroorganismDay, the Faculty’s hashtag, and that of the Spanish Society for Microbiology. A jury of participating professors will select a winner, who will receive a microbiology book and a plush toy, to be collected at the department.

To make the event even more fun, we will have a photocall with costumes of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. We are sure students, especially first-years, will enjoy taking photos and posting them online. Additionally, we will give out microorganism pins crafted by our team, which have been very popular in previous outreach events.

Registration:
No registration required.