 Thank you for joining me, Professor Vaso Tileschi, your professor at Gosei Del Sev University of Stip in North Macedonia, and obviously you're our FEMS director for events and internationalization. Thank you for taking the time in your busy schedule to join me for an interview today. I would like to thank you for your kind introduction and to say that I always enjoy talking with you, especially when we have interviews. Yeah, it's great fun and this is my third professional for the job. Oh, thank you. So I best start us off with my first question. So I wanted you to tell us a bit about your commitment to FEMS. I mean, I've introduced you as our director of events and internationalization, but what does that involve? And what accomplishments for FEMS and the FEMS community are you most proud of in your role? Thank you very much for this question. I am devoted to FEMS for almost 28 years. As a young microbiologist, I became a president of Macedonian microbiological societies in the term 1993-1997. And my first big success was to join my society to FEMS. After presidency, I became a delegate in FEMS and I was very active delegate. So I devoted past years completely to FEMS, to its mission activities, development, visibility. And can you believe that I never missed any consul meeting, which is annual meeting of FEMS delegates. I believe that I was... 100% attended. ...twenty-five consul meetings. And in this respect, I am the oldest member of FEMS. I had a chance and possibility to be a FEMS Grand Secretary for seven years. And I shadow, I took a position of two FEMS officers before that. And in that time, only two types of grants existed. But when I became Grand Secretary, the strategy of the FEMS board was to develop this grant scheme and we end up with eight various type of grants for different categories. So I'm so proud about this, because during these years, FEMS has supported over 1,000 early career scientists to conduct their research, short-term research, up to three months. And we were supported over 100 microbiologic events like symposia, congress conferences, summer schools. So thousands of people attended and get direct help from FEMS to accomplish their wishes and to join some meeting and to introduce themselves to make new friendships and collaborations. As a delegate, I was a member of one group named Terra NOAA. And I was responsible because I forced the most to... My question was why FEMS has no its own congress? And then I made this pilot study, which was accepted by the Executive Committee of FEMS, and it developed further, and we started organizing a serial of congresses. And as everybody knows, who is familiar with FEMS activities, with eight extremely successful congresses, next one will be in 2021. And we have plans for the forthcoming after that congress. I was a member of the organizing committee of all congresses and the chairperson of Congress Grants Committee for seven FEMS congresses. I'm very happy that we supported also almost 2,000 young scientists to attend FEMS congresses because FEMS invested in science in young scientists and it was tradition for FEMS to support about approximately 200 young scientists with a budget of 100,000 euros. And for the next congress, it will be double, 200,000 euros. But unfortunately, we will not have probably, most probably face-to-face congress and to use this budget. But for the forthcoming, this is a huge help of FEMS to young scientists. And one day we will meet in person. So eventually, hopefully we can... Maybe that is one note, but the next one. I also participate as initiator to develop FEMS declaration on microbiology. This is a fantastic document. Maybe it is time to some adjuster to the current situation in the world. As you mentioned in 2017, I was elected for the position FEMS director of internationalization. And re-elected for the same position in 2022 for events and internationalization. So I'm very happy and proud that in a short time with the support of the board of directors and with the support of the staff from the FEMS central office, we accomplished from idea to realization to make live some visions that I had. We start organizing FEMS summer school for postdocs. I will tell something a bit later. Then FEMS network of ambassadors and the organization of conferences of this type as we are now present, fortunately online. So I contribute a lot to spreading of FEMS vision and vision in Europe and worldwide. But FEMS enabled me. I'm very grateful for that, to realize these noble visions and projects. So helping the young scientists and funding meetings and organizing events to bring scientists from around the world together, I guess. What FEMS does and what you're most proud of. So an example of one of those meetings is of course this conference. So I was wondering as the main, as the chair of the organizing committee and starting from a conference that was going to be in Belgrade and then transitioning to an online conference in just a few months. It must have been a lot of work. So can you tell me a little bit about what it was like behind the scenes and how it was to organize this conference? Had to really sort of change tack really fast to deal with new systems in this ongoing pandemic. So how was that? I may say that maybe the main goal of FEMS is to connect people on the first line to connect microbiologists and microbiology. When FEMS board of directors approved this project, we start working with a great enthusiasm. And everything was prepared in about one year or a year and a half for the first FEMS conference on microbiology in 2020. We prepared a great program and great speakers and also fantastic venue. Brand new hotel Hilton in the center of Belgrade and Belgrade is a beautiful city. And but unfortunately COVID-19 pandemic was faster than us. And what happened? So although when it started and it's some more difficult situation in February, March, I was very optimistic that by May or beginning of June everything will stop by start of the summer but this didn't happen. So in FEMS we had organized a FEMS emergency task group taking care of everything, follow all events, situation and in the first place to take care of the safety of the FEMS community. And we decided that we should cancel most of the events and about this conference about some discussion we decided to make a question to the speakers what is and the scientific committee what they think about to go online. And the feedback was fantastic all accepted to be part of this conference and then we decided to go online but we needed some more time instead of July. We decided to have this conference on this October with the hope that the pandemic will be behind us and we could help maybe if not completely conference face to face and live but maybe to have a heavy conference. For example, I intended to be in Belgrade at least now during the conference but because of the worsening of the situation I couldn't go. So are you in North Macedonia at the moment then? Are you? Yes, I'm in a lot of Macedonia at home but you see FEMS is with me. Yeah, absolutely. FEMS is everywhere, FEMS lives in the cloud. We are completely in a new field, new zone. Everything is new, new experience for all of us for FEMS, for staff of FEMS, for organizers, for hosts, for everyone. And this is the, so I will say a little bit more about this. Maybe I cannot say at the moment what I feel about organizing online conferences but I know that it looks like a more complicated than organized live conference. And probably we will need some time when everything finished to summarize all advantages and disadvantages. But I would say that my preferences were and will be always to have online face-to-face meetings. So I just wanted to point out that hopefully we will return to Belgrade in 2022. Is that correct? So that we should make use of this wonderful venue and hopefully do the in-person conference in Serbia as planned later down the line. But for now, we at least get to have a conference which is better than no conference. And I just wanted to ask, for me, this is my first online conference, for you perhaps the same. But for many scientists joining, perhaps presenting their first posters, it might be their first conference at all. So I just wanted to ask, yeah, what advice do you have for young scientists at their first conference and what kind of wisdom can you give to them from your position as a senior scientist? For young scientists, I will repeat that I'm sorry that this is online conference, but we will learn from this, we will get some lectures and we will know how to behave and to be prepared for any kind of situation in life. Not only for conferences. I would say to them that this is the best period of their lives, they are young, they are healthy, they are ambitious, they have a lot of energy, they have their own dreams. I would suggest them to follow their dreams and doesn't matter are they are small or big dreams. If you have small dreams, you will easily come to a big dream and never be disappointed. But you should always be committed to the science if you take this way of your life, committed to science, to love what you work, to fight for truth in the science. Talking about microorganisms, try to be friends with them to live in harmony but never underestimated microorganisms. And always collaboration with your fellow young scientists and senior scientists will lead you to the best success. And as a FEMS officer for many years that I know all advantages and possibilities you can get from FEMS, I would suggest you always to follow what is in the FEMS website to join as a FEMS affiliates and to join as a member of your local society because through your societies you are a part of the big FEMS family who is always there for you to support your needs. So I mean, I've asked a few different people what are the pros and cons of a virtual conference like this and I've heard lots of big lists of cons, it's hard to talk to people but I think there are also some pros and one of the things I think it's good to highlight is that with a virtual conference it's a lot cheaper for young scientists who are all over the world to attend and it's more accessible perhaps to people who can't travel or can't afford hotels. So hopefully in the future, even if we have in-person conferences perhaps we can do a kind of hybrid maybe so that people who can't travel can also access the science. So I've had lots of scientists moan at me about how difficult online conferences are but I think there are also some pros and we'll get used to aspects of this as we get used to this whole format. You are completely right about this. We're talking about costs. Costs are much lower for everyone. Benefits in some terms can be much higher than expected and I believe that the future will be probably most probably hybrid conferences for those who cannot afford to join some meeting from different reasons they can join online. So hopefully we can get good at this format and get more and more people involved in microbiology and actually this brings me on to my next question which was, yeah, you know how and why did you become a microbiologist? I've talked to people sometimes they say oh, it was by accident. I was interested in genetics and bacteria were easy but what was your story? Everyone has an interesting story. My story is also interesting at least for me. Believe or not I'm a medical doctor and I used to work as a general practitioner for almost five years. I work with people and I enjoy my job. When the time for specialization came I was offered from one famous professor of microbiology Boris Sokoloski. He was very famous in former Yugoslavia in a big country and he invited me to be a microbiologist. And my dreams were to be maybe specialists of internal diseases or dermatologists or psychiatrists I don't know what because I have different view but I accepted this challenge and can you believe that first three months when I was in laboratory I was staying with my head between my arms thinking what I am doing here, see my place here or not. But after three months when I start going deeper and deeper in the microbiology when I make connection with people then I saw that this is my world. It doesn't matter that I'm a big like a person and work with a so small microorganism that you cannot see. So I became a secretary of my society as a young doctor on the specialization of microbiology. And when I finished my specialization because I was very active my society recognized me as a good leader of the society and I was elected as a president of the society. So in microbiology I accomplished a lot of things. I became specialist of microbiology, master of science, PhD, full professor, I work with students. I have hundreds of students every session and I'm very proud of them. So microbiology is a special world. And one more thing that tell me this is very funny that can you believe that two things all my students knows that Louis Pasteur was born on 27th of December. And I was born on 27th of December, but different year. So maybe his spirit was blue toothed into you at some point. But this is some coincidence that this is very interesting. And one thing that during my beginning of the specialization gave me courage to continue. There was a one serial of movies produced in Germany, Linux first world and the best person in the serial was the microbiology. I did talk with this is a good way to continue. You just mentioned that you have lots of students. How has it been teaching them during this pandemic? Has it been difficult or is it just a lot of Zoom calls with them or do you miss the contact with your student? Since March this year, everything is online. I and I believe all my students enjoying having classes with me because I'm not talking only microbiology. I'm talking about other things to them to give some advices of life because they have to be not only people with a diploma but they have to work on their personality on their view of life to be good persons. And really this is, I have one group of 220 medical doctors following my lectures, this is a very big group and several smaller groups and it is not the same. But this is something that we can overcome the situation. And also we have defending of diploma works or specialization work online, which is not the best way to go but this is a maximum we can do and hopefully we will stop next year. Okay, so just to sort of bring us back to the conference you're chairing the FEMM session and short presentation by grantees at four o'clock on Saturday, what are you looking for in a good presentation from a grantee? Look, this session is meant to be traditional session for every forthcoming FEMM conference on microbiology because we want to emphasize how FEMM contribute to young scientists and to develop one or their career with different types of FEMM grants. We have now excellent presentations for this session and this session will be just before the after COVID-19 on table, they are all excellent and they are not only Korean scientists anymore. Most of them are now, they have scientific titles, they have teaching titles and they are very experienced and I'm very happy that FEMM help them in development of their career and I personally, I don't expect any answers to their research but I would like to hear from them how was, what was the influence of FEMM support in their research and in their career development? And as well as, you know, chairing a session, you're actually going to be presenting your own research at 10 past five on Saturday. And so, yeah, the title is Metagenomic Insight into Microbial Diversity of the Unique Laurentite Mine in Alkar. Can you tell us about this mine? It sounds very fascinating. Did you get to visit? Did you get to sample? What's this place like? Thank you very much for this question. This is really something fantastic and I would like to invite everyone who follow this interview to join the session and follow my talk because I give there more information and we can talk about this maybe one week. This is the unique main mine in the world, Alkar because it is main, very ancient with gold arsenic, antimony and pallium deposits and a lot of minerals. Most important there is thallium. Thallium is part of the mineral Laurentite. This mineral exists in several mines in the world but the purest Laurentite without any other elements or just small traces of few elements is in Alkar and in the main part of Alkar, estimates are that there are 500 tons of this thallium element and what is interesting about thallium? Thallium, you cannot find free thallium in the nature. There are a lot of isotopes but one isotope 203 and 205 can be found but what is the interesting that from the sun there are some particles named Neutrinos. There are three types of Neutrinos that's solar Neutrinos from the sun, they go up to the earth and when they in the contact with thallium, thallium transfers to lead 205 and you can scientist estimates with the concentration of this lead about, so there is belief that they can find the secret of the producing power of the sun and the secrets of the universe and it was the reason that thallium was suggested as a geochemical detector of solar Neutrinos. So now there is a legend about this main deposit ore that Alexander the Great, this is written in one book from a famous British writer, Christopher McDonald. He was talking about the secrets of the power of Alexander the Great because he believed in the power of stones, crystal and thallism and he used this crystal, Lauren did beautiful, like red color, use this for himself, for his favorite generals and soldiers. So I'm very proud about this and we make a research. I was in the tunnel inside, it is very narrow. I couldn't go more than 30, 40 meters deep inside because just more people can go there and in the collaboration with the Serbian university, university, I took samples, then we extracted DNA in Belgrade and we send this DNA to Visabio Valencia. And finally we prepared a great paper and I'm very proud and happy that this paper was published in a famous journal, very prestigious journal, Fence Microbiology Ecology. And it was one of my dreams that I would like to publish sometime a paper in Fence Journal and how it's happened. I have a little image of the lorandite here. So it is this beautiful red color, isn't it? It's so lovely. I want to follow my talk to get more information about this, it will be just this. Okay, well I'll, yeah, look out for this talk. I can't wait for Saturday. Okay, so I mean, obviously the background of this whole conference and this whole year has been the ongoing pandemic. I wanted to ask from your perspective, how is this, what is this pandemic taught us about how the scientific community can respond to a crisis? Joseph, this is very complicated situation. I mean, the beginning I believe that it will be solved very easily or in a short time. But as we see situation is complicated. Microbiologists are on the first line of this, let's say war and they should be emphasized. Collaboration I think is very in the highest level and the scientific community allowed, for example, publishing all scientific research and everything what is connected with something new. We call it to be published as soon as possible. And to be available to all scientific community, but I think that there are still more questions than answers. One of the reasons about this was that we decided to organize COVID-19 pandemic round table. We invited fantastic speakers, eight speakers and we have a great moderator. And I believe that maybe on Saturday, after these discussions, we will have answers to some questions that we don't know yet. So we'll wait and see on Saturday, I guess. So yeah, as the FEMS director for events and internationalization, I wanted to ask your opinion on how important is the international nature of science to its effectiveness and success? And what can we do to build and also defend international collaboration in this era of perhaps increasing nationalism and localism and protectionism? How do we defend that international aspects to science? Look, collaboration between scientists is on the first place. Most important is if they succeed to work independently, not disturbed by the politics. And I am sure that the science community, they need support from politicians, from business sector and so on, but they should make decisions themselves. This would be the best approach to solve this crisis. Always if you look back in the history, big crisis in different area of the life forced the science to have a big jumps. And this is always in the history when we have some great findings and developments in this kind of situations. The problem now is that a lot of lives are gone. This is the problem. This is the main problem. And I think that the science and scientific community should be on the first line and all advice is to be respected from the society. I guess one of the ways that you've helped to build another aspect of FEMS' internationalization is by setting up our ambassador network. We now have ambassadors in China, South Korea, Japan, America, and just recently we've announced two new ones in Canada and Australia. So how can this network help FEMS and the microbiology community? And yeah, what should we all be doing with our ambassadors? How can they best help FEMS and the community? Look, this project, which is not project, it's live project and developing project is a great project. And to explain that we decided to have ambassadors for the beginning in a big countries and big societies that are out of Europe. In Europe, we have FEMS member societies and we have FEMS delegates. So as you mentioned, we have six ambassadors. They are all very active. Three ambassadors are actively involved in this conference. Two of them as invited speakers, Yoshi Yoshida from Japan and Lixin Zhang from China. They are invited speakers. Lixin Zhang is from China. And we have Linda Kenney, FEMS ambassador from USA. She's... She's chairing the COVID table. She will be chairing the COVID 19 round table. And also she provide us a fantastic speaker from United States. So ambassadors role in a few verses to promote FEMS activities, to connect microbiologists of their societies with FEMS societies, to encourage their members to publish in FEMS journals, to attend congresses, conferences, to be joined affiliate members of FEMS. And also I would like to mention that all of these six ambassadors we have now, we will develop this network next year for two more, I believe. They're all great scientists and fantastic personalities on the first place. And so much expertise and experience coming with them. This is unbelievable. They're respected in their societies. And I believe that this communication on the global level will be more intensive for the benefit of microbiology and the benefit of... They have been really great at helping us to meet you scientists in their regions. And I hope that the program can expand over the next few years. This brings me to my final question for you, Vaso. So hopefully looking to the future, next summer we might be planning to run the FEMS summer school for postdocs in some format. So can you tell me a bit about what the plans are for this event and any information for potential candidates watching? I was at the previous one in person in Split and it was a wonderful event, amazing venue, so much great science, beautiful surroundings. Can we expect it to return next summer? What's the thinking at the moment? Joseph, you were the witness of the first summer school for postdocs. This is a fantastic project. And this is aimed to the most ambitious, great, young, early career scientists. We have a fantastic venue. It is a Mediterranean Institute of Life Sciences in Split, Croatia. And last year we had the first summer school for postdocs. It was more than successful. We had extremely good program and fantastic mentors and speakers and the feedback from all participants was more than we even expected. So for this year, we also prepared great program with different mentors and speakers. Everything was ready to start and we were in the process of selecting candidates. But unfortunately, COVID-19 also was the reason that we canceled this year and we will continue with the same program and same speakers next year. So this is a challenge for the most ambitious postdocs. This is the place there where they should spend 10 days together with the great scientists and their colleagues. So my suggestion to them will be to follow fans' website, not only for summer schools for every information they can find there, they have all useful information. But in terms of summer school, we will announce that maybe in a month or two and they should follow if they think these topics are good for them. I invite them to apply because this situation is like that, that will have a lot of people applying for this exceptional summer school. It really was exceptional. And I hope that I can attend again this year and perhaps film more interviews with more people because there were so many amazing scientists there. And in terms of the topic, I think it is the same as the one we planned this year. It's gonna be microbial evolvability mechanisms, resistance, biology and strategies to defeat and detect antimicrobial resistance. So a really interesting and useful topic for any young scientist. And that brings me to the end of the questions I have for you. Is there anything else you'd like to say in a final moment? I would say that I enjoy this interview with you. I would like to send a message to all young scientists, early career scientists to join the FEMS family. And thank you very much again for this possibility to give this interview because there are some things that I never thought would happen. Well, thank you for joining me. It's been a great session. And good luck with all your speaking engagements later on. I hope they all go well and that all your mics are unmuted. And yeah, good luck. That's the conference. Thank you for organizing it. It's gonna be a fantastic few days. And I'm sure we'll speak again in the future. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.