MIKROBIOKOSMOS

The Microbial environment is part of the National wealth and resources of every country. Therefore, it is evident that its protection, exploration and exploitation would be of great benefit for every national economy.

MikroBioKosmos is the Hellenic National Initiative for the exploration and commercial exploitation of the microbial national resources.

FOUNDING STATEMENT

In the wider context of the European Research Area (ERA), the relevant priorities of the Seventh Framework (FP7) of the European Commission and in accord to the objectives of the Lisbon (2000) agenda, we have created the Hellenic Initiative MikroBioKosmos.

The two main goals of the initiative are:

(a) the organization of a National Network of Microbial Diversity, Genomics, and Biotechnological applications and

(b) the foundation of a new, distributed Research Center, the National Center for BioProspecting (NCBP), that will enable the inter-disciplinary study of the microbial world in unique environments across the country. NCBP will be comprised from all the Research Institutes and Universities of the members of the network.

May, 2006

«Our work is not limited to saving the Greek natural environment. No country can be saved when the global ecosystem is out of balance. We look for a new code of values, a new ethic that will bring us to the next millennium. It is a tragic fact that, unless our life is threatened, we do not reach for global unity and cooperation»  

Angelos Goulandris, 1977

Why National Efforts are needed for exploration of microbial diversity

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• Transition from random, anecdotal and small scale surveying of microbial diversity to systematic and comprehensive large efforts

   

• Collaborations across national centers/efforts rather that just between individual researchers could be significantly more effective for comprehensive exploration of the microbial environments covering the entire planet

   

• Comparatively, going to the moon or space exploration could never have been the project of a single researcher or even a network of them.

   

• Efforts of this magnitude require big national commitments, and exploring and understanding how earth breaths, grows, evolves and sustains life, (which is essentially the works of the microbial world) is much bigger than going to the moon for our short term survival.

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