iPlantMicro Lab

Lab is full of smiles 😊🇪🇸🇵🇹🇬🇷🇮🇷🇬🇧🇳🇵🇩🇰🇧🇷🇷🇸🇬🇷🇫🇷🇵🇱
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Nahhhh fungi are crazy things🤪🧫
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Proud to be together
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Today we celebrate the women advancing science and deepening our understanding of plant–microbe interactions. Women researchers are shaping the future of plant science. Our lab is proudly built by your passion and strength, thanks! 👩🏻‍🔬🌱🔬
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Seems the are having fun, so brilliant team! 😄

New after-lab activity at iPlantMicro: Cheese & Wine 🧀🍷
An excellent excuse to step away from the bench, share some cheese, enjoy a glass of wine, and continue solving the world’s problems… or at least talking about them. Good science, good company, and very good cheese! @itqbnova.bsky.social

Ahhhhhh yes, our very traditional Christmas dinner...
In a Chinese restaurant...
In February...
At lunchtime...
Gathered old ones and fresh ones around a bubbling hotpot... Another year proudly preserving the deeply questionable traditions of our lab 🔥🎄🥢😜
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Very intense days in the lab, making our best effort to achieve our goals! So proud of this team😊
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🔬🌱A warm welcome to Rita, Inês and Teresa, IST bachelor students joining the lab. Their project will dive into nodulation, microbiota dynamics under drought, FP-labelled strains to follow root colonization and studying early rhizosphere recruitment in tomato ancestors. Welcome!
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Very happy to welcome Ella and Moses from the Master's program in Plant Biology for Sustainable Agriculture lab rotations! They will participate in our projects to characterize exudates in recruiting process, and evaluate potential plant growth-promoting traits! @itqbnova.bsky.social

Lab meeting agenda:
1️⃣Data analysis
2️⃣Coffee
3️⃣Extremely rigorous comparison of Manteigaria vs Pastéis de Belém
4️⃣Absolutely non-conditioned group of scientists🤭

Result:statistically insignificant difference, p>nata

Conclusion: further sampling required (for science, obviously)☕️
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🌍🔬 Welcoming our visiting PhD student Pedro!
He’ll be working on cadmium bioremediation: genome sequencing of bacterial strains, genetic background analysis, metabolomics, and PGP traits under heavy metal stress.
Science for sustainable solutions 🌱🧬
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Growing together! We are always happy to host people from evewhere, that's making this lab awesome! 🇵🇹🇪🇸🇧🇷🇩🇰🇳🇵🇮🇷🇬🇧
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Welcome to the lab, Henrique Cabral! He joins us as an intern to isolate and evaluate soil & cucumber seed microbiota as locally adapted bioinoculants for farmers in La Rábita (Granada,SP). Acidic soils+slightly saline irrigation demand local solutions.Excited for what’s ahead!
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Today we celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science! Proud to work alongside the talented women in our lab who lead with rigor, creativity, and determination. Your work drives innovation and inspires the next generation. Thank you for everything you do!
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We’re excited to welcome our new Master’s student joining us from 🇮🇷 Iran, Mahdi!
Her research focuses on identifying salt-tolerant microbial strains to develop bioinoculants that help tomato plants thrive under increasing soil salinity! 🌱🍅
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🎓🌱 Welcome Lilas Wolff to our lab!
Her MSc project explores how the invasive alga Rugulopteryx okamurae can be valorised as a soil amendment, studying its impact on microbiota, biostimulation, and crop & soil health.
Excited to have you with us, Lilas!
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When a good friend opens his office to you, work suddenly feels easy and enjoyable again. The world could use more colleagues like you, Cris! @itqbnova.bsky.social

This week, Catarina, Inês, Jacinta and Domingas (AE Miraflores) began their journey into plant–microbe interactions. Supported by João Silva and Niraula Kusum, they are studying drought effects and screening new bioinoculants for sustainable agriculture!
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January, almost done ✅
Big projects taking shape!
- João wrapping up a massive screening for a future predictive tool 📊
-Leonor & Kusum advancing root exudate recruitment traits 🦠
-Thomas testing a new bioinoculant 🧪
Full speed 🚀 @itqbnova.bsky.social

New lab toy just arrived: bioreactor ✅
Unpacked → assembled → ready to run.
This unlocks better control for:
• inoculant growth optimization
• microalgae cultivation
• pre-industrial process requirements
Now we tune conditions and let biology do its thing!
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Night inoculation, just hope is not becoming a new tendency 😅
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Please, welcome our more recent internship student! Leonor is going to work with Kusum in the challenging but ultra-cool exudate-mediated recruiting under stress! Best luck!
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Our students have been getting the lab ready for a new phase, putting in a lot of work behind the scenes. The final task was cleaning the greenhouse, helping us start the year with everything in place and ready to go!
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New year vibes: clean lab coats and a fresh start! 😂🥼
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Don't worry, these heroes are already on holidays!❄️🎄But, it's important to mention their labour organizing the 'enemy' of the lab, organizing -80 stock! Samples from ice age, glycerol collections...Full heroes! For a fresh and clean new year beginning! @itqbnova.bsky.social

🎄✨ Merry Christmas & Happy New Year from iPlantMicro Lab! 🌱🔬
Thanks to everyone we worked with this year — here’s to more growth, curiosity, and great science in the year ahead!
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Today our students shared our work as part of @itqbnova’s communication strategy. Kusum and André are getting very good (and famous) in dissemination tasks of all kind!
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Give me hand, please ⏩ Take two, or 12! End of the year, las rushing! @itqbnova.bsky.social

As part of #SaltShield project, we will implement a new bioformulation for our halophile strains using cork powder. Not only improving saline stress tolerance, but valorizing local products! @itqbnova.bsky.social