 Welcome anyone who's watching to the first interview that I've done for the FEMS conference. And I think it's indeed the first interview of the whole conference. I'm joined by Professor Eliora Ron, who is a professor at Tel Aviv University in Israel, also president of the IUMS and secretary general of the European Academy of Microbiology. Thanks for joining us for a nice interview. So yeah, my first question to you is a question I've asked many scientists, because I think it gets a nice bit of background about their love of microbes. So what is your favorite microbe and why? Well, that's very easy. My favorite microbes are pathogenic strains of E. coli. You know, E. coli is a very common bug. It's usually in our intestine. It's a nice friendly bug. But some strains of this family can cause infections and they cause infections out of the intestinal tract, like urinary tract infections. And I'm very interested in them because they are now an important clinical problem. They are in the hospitals and they cause hospitals and institutions associated infections. And they are antibiotic resistant. So they are a real clinical problem and very interesting. Now I'm a geneticist, so these bugs are very good to do genetics with. So I can work on interesting bugs that I can do genetics on. And that's wonderful. And so with the sort of antibiotic resistant E. coli, what's the mechanism it has being antibiotic resistant? So I know there are many different kinds of resistant mechanisms. But what's the particular one this one uses to... Well, you know, this family is E. coli. They're also called X-bex, which is extra intestinal pathogenic E. coli. They have a real, very broad repertoire of resistance mechanisms. Some of them are the worst because they have enzymes which degrade the antibiotics. And that means that not only they can survive, but everybody else in this whole site can survive. And they just destroy the antibiotics. Okay, so you know, that mechanism means that the resistance will actually be a factor that, yeah. The whole community of microbes can make use of. So even if they're not that vicious, but they're in the intestine or in the UTI or you're going to attract or anywhere there is another bug. Which is much more virulent. This other bug will also survive because the E. coli will degrade the antibiotics for it. So it's a very interesting mechanism. Also the genes that code for these enzymes are on plasmids and on plasmids that can go from one bug to another by conjugation. So in a few hours, you have a whole community of bacteria, which are now antibiotic resistance. So this horizontal gene transfer can spread amongst the whole community. And is the enzyme a beta-lactamase or do they have several different enzymes? They have several beta-lactamases. Actually, they have all the kinds of beta-lactamases are present in strains of E. coli. They're also resistant to fluoroquinolones, since some of them are resistant to everything. Okay, so I guess, you know, with this conference is hopefully a huge range of scientists, but there's going to be hopefully many young scientists. I guess it might be their first conference. And I wanted to ask, you know, what advice would you have as someone who's at the more senior end of their career for people just starting out in science, who perhaps are at their first conference with their first poster? What is the best piece of advice you could give them looking back on your career? Well, I think that the best advice is to listen carefully, whatever you can, even if it's not in your very direct field of interest, and don't be shy. Just if you have a question, just ask it. Young scientists are often very shy. They think, okay, if I don't understand it, then maybe it's my problem. But the truth is that if you have a question, then something is not clear, and it's probably not clear to everyone, not only to you. And just ask the question and try to get an answer. And as scientists, I think that the most important thing you can do is try to think differently. Try to think out of the box, not the way everybody else thinks, because this way you can really achieve no discoveries and important information. So I guess have confidence in the fact that there's a question that you have, and ask it is the kind of thing. For me, this is also certainly my first online conference. Is this your first online conference? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, so I mean, we're just beginning to see how this is going to work. But do you have any feel at the moment for what could be the pros and the cons of this format? Well, I see many comments. It's quite artificial to speak through the video, through the camera. You don't see the person. When you give a talk, you don't see the face. And it's very important to see the face of the people who are listening, because then you can understand if they follow, if they don't follow. What's clear? What's not clear? What's interesting? What's boring? You'll see them sleeping in the back. Okay. I have to do something about it. You can raise your voice and maybe move your arm a bit. Wake them up, tell a joke. This way, it's very sort of artificial in a way. And very remote. The only pro that I can see is that this is the only solution that we can have any contact with each other. Although we can't do real networking, real good discussions, but at least we can hear about other people's experiments. We couldn't do it otherwise. And I guess the thing is that with all of this, it's the bit rate of data that we're able to transfer to each other is just a lot smaller in these situations. There's a smaller piece of the world that we're looking at that we can actually exchange information through. But I guess one of the pros just to hopefully put a silver lining is that maybe more people will be able to access a conference like this online. People who can't afford to travel, can't afford to stay in a different country for several days. So we maybe will be able to bring perhaps more researchers into a conference. But in that case, I think there can be a solution in which you have a real conference and an online recording or whatever so that people can listen. And I would even say that for the people who would see it in the video, it maybe should be very cheap or even free. So to treat everyone, you know, a student, a student that has very little resources and is sitting, I don't know where in the world should be able to listen to it without paying. So hopefully this year we can get really good online conferences and then when we go back to real life conferences we can maybe push the two formats together and then get the best of both. Well, I mean, at the moment we're stuck with this format. So let's take a trip into memory lane and imagine a time before there was COVID-19. What got you excited by microbiology as a child? So you spent your whole career as a microbiologist. Are there any key moments when you were young that really excited your interest? Well, not at all. I did not intend to be a microbiologist at all. I was really interested in genetics. I love genetics. I love to understand genes. And at some point when I was starting, I realized that the way that I can really understand genes is by using bacteria because it's impossible to do experiments on humans. I don't like to work with animals. So bacteria, I can really do things. And because, I mean, they're huge populations and you can really work with them. You can get the DNA. You can get the RNA. You can get the genes. You can transfer the genes from one bacterium to another without having to have a health and care profile. We can do all those things freely and really understand what's happening at the genetic molecular level. I mean, they are fascinating in terms of organisms to use in a lab. And like you say, you don't have to talk to mice. You can just use billions of cells and many, many generations. So for genetics, I'm sure it's super useful. Have you strayed outside of bacteria to other microbes, perhaps used any yeast or even protests for genetical work? Have you stayed with bacteria? Well, I prefer bacteria. I mean, yeast is okay. It's a possibility for me, of course. But bacteria are simpler because they are haploids. So you don't have dominant recessive. They're easier. They're easier to work with. Yeast for me is fine. You know, I'm working on bacteria because I found bacteria which are very interesting. But yeast would be okay. If I... I mean, the eukaryotes, the easiest eukaryotes to work with, I think, and they're just fine. I could do that easily. Are you still researching, by the way, actively? Oh, yes, I am. Do you still have access to your labs? Yeah. I am very much so. I am. And do you plan to do so without retiring ever? I mean, I know so many scientists just, they never want to stop. Are you one of these? I certainly don't want to stop. Excellent. I would go on as long as university lets me. And my university so far, they were very good at body. I think that as long as I can, I would like to continue. But I guess that one day I will have to stop for one reason or another. But anyway, yes, now I'm still doing research. And I love to teach young people when there's a big gap that the young people can't feel by themselves between what was known before and what is known now. And the young people really like to learn. At least for me, I can say that I have many young people who are just eager to know things that they can't get in the textbook. And we sit for hours and they just like to hear the stories behind the papers and everything. Yeah, I guess the textbook will have the information, the knowledge, but it won't tell you how the knowledge was produced always. You won't see that tale of humans or different disagreements between scientists. And that's so important to see how it works, I guess. Okay, so I'm bringing us back to the present moment. We're all hunkered down in our working from home environments to cope with the ongoing pandemic. And I wanted to ask, how are you coping firstly and what's the most important impact or changes had on your life over the past few months? Well, my life has completely changed. I mean, I don't meet people, I meet very few people. I don't go to Congresses. My personal life has changed completely. I don't go to concerts, I don't go to theater. No culture at all. I don't go to museums, no culture. I spend much more time just thinking and working by myself, which is good, it has advantages. But still, I think it's very, it's fertiliser to talk to other people. And just discuss things with other people. It's very important. And I don't do this enough because I get lazy to start the Zoom meetings. I do that, but not as much as, you know, sitting with a group of people for coffee every day. It's not the same. And I find that I can maintain my relationships with people over Zoom, but it's really difficult to make new connections. You know, because that chance meeting and an elevate, all this kind of stuff is what you need to make new friends and new contacts. And that's so hard to replace. So I can, you know, arrange good Zoom meetings with people I already know, but yeah, it's the new contacts which I think are hard to replace. And the meetings are also formal. When you arrange it, you arrange it with someone and you say what you're going to talk about. It's not like, you know, you sit in the coffee break and somebody tells you, oh, I just read this paper and all that very informal, lots of exchange of information. Now it's all very focused. I want to talk to you about this and this and this. Let us have a Zoom meeting. Yeah, okay. It's definitely a different way of doing things. This is the beginning of at least an international conference of scientists where hopefully some information exchange can happen. And your career has been, you know, international in the sense, you know, you've been involved with FEMS, you've been involved with IUMS. How important is the international nature of science, do you think, to its effectiveness and its success? Oh, I think it's very important. I really think it's very important because you can get so much more out of what you know when you discuss it with other people and especially with people who come from different backgrounds and different places, different mentalities even. So I find international connections extremely important in science. I like with the European, with the funding, the European Community Funding. When you have a consortium of people, it's fantastic. It's just fantastic. You get so much more out of it than working by yourself or with a colleague who's sitting next door. So I really think that this is a very important part of science. You know, obviously the last few months have been very difficult for the scientific community. How have you felt people have responded to this ongoing pandemic and what can we do better? What do we have to start doing better the longer the situation goes on? Well, I think the main problem is that this whole thing, pandemic is dealt with by politicians and they don't really listen enough I think to scientists. Maybe they consult medical doctors probably not enough and I think the scientists are almost out of it at least in my country. The scientists are out of it. Medical doctors are consulted but the politicians make the decisions according to parameters which are different from what we would use for handling the situation. I'm not sure it's possible to change this because the people who make the decisions they have a different agenda. So I think there's not very much we can do to have a better impact. I'm quite pessimistic on that. You think that we could maybe present evidence in a way that would be easier for politicians to understand or for them to use? I don't know because everything has economic fallout. So I think that we can do very little here. Maybe we'll have to catch up in six months and see if your pessimism is correct. I hope so. This is obviously been the year of COVID-19 but ticking away in the background is obviously antimicrobial resistance as a problem. This could be an even bigger problem in the long term. Are we doing enough to prevent it and what does the scientific community need to do to convince policy makers to do? It is a difficult problem. The most difficult part is that today one can say, OK, develop no antibiotics. That's a good possibility. But our companies are not interested in that. If you can see how you antimicrobial new drugs were put in the market, it's amazing. It's very clear why they are not interested because if they have a very good anti-bacterial medicine, the person takes it for three days, four days, and finished. So they put billions to register the drugs and the anti-bionics or whatever it is. And a few days and it's finished. If they develop for the same sum of money something against high blood pressure or cholesterol or Alzheimer or whatever, people will take it for years and years and years and years every day. So they make much more money on those drugs than they do on antimicrobials. And there's very little research on antimicrobials because of that. The companies are not willing to invest in that. I think that that has to be taken up by governments because governments have the resources to do these sort of things. So I think that an obvious thing to do is to develop no antibiotics. For that you also need a lot of basic research to understand the pathogens because the pathogens are like the ones who are working with other pathogens that cause the problems in hospitals. There's very many of them. Many kinds of them. So you can't make a vaccine. It's not like tetanus. You make a vaccine covers everything. No. Or COVID. You will have a vaccine, you will cover everything. It's not the same with bacteria. The vaccines are much more complicated and you have to understand the pathogenesis in order to come up with something that will be effective against a variety of bacteria. We need more money for research here. We need more basic research. Absolutely. The government to step in where the marketplace has failed because we can't expect private companies to make money off it in a way that will convince them to do it. And one thing which is very important I think that I would really like to note. We need a lot of research for rapid diagnosis because what happens today is that somebody goes into the hospital with a bacterial infection, a severe bacterial infection and it takes two days usually to understand which bug is causing the infection and what it is resistant to. And in these two days, often got the wrong medicine. Often, not always, but often got the wrong medicine. So it was ineffective and many times by the time the person gets there or they know what to give the person, the person has already gone to the better world or has infected a lot of people in the hospital. There should be more stress on rapid diagnosis. The person should come in with an infection, a bacterial infection, like a urinary tract infection. The person should be able to get the result within three or four hours before they start the treatment. Better diagnostics, public sector development of antimicrobials and more basic research. I would also say rapid diagnosis in the community before the person gets to the hospital because for some of those diseases, the urinary tract infection can develop into sepsis, a septicemia and the person really passes away in less than a day. So it should be also in the clinic some ways to examine and to know which bacteria they are or at least what they are resistant to. Okay, just as we're approaching the end of the interview, I've got one more question for you to kind of end things on a bit more of a collaborative note. So I just wanted to note that this year, PHEMS and the European Academy of Cropology, of which I think you're the general secretary, have joined forces to launch a new open access journal, MicroLife. What's your message to any potential authors and what would you like to say about the journal? Well, I think that this is a very important development, a very positive development. As of now, we don't have a good high impact factor microbiology journal in Europe. And I think we should have. I think that our scientists should be able to publish in a European journal. I mean, we can publish anywhere, of course, but that would be very important to have a good, very good high impact factor microbiology journal in Europe. And I think that will benefit microbiology in Europe, of course, but also worldwide, because it's really a necessity today. So I am very optimistic about the impact that this journal will have. And I hope that the microbiological community in Europe will contribute their best papers to this journal because this is important. If we can make it, that's the way. Our best journals, our best papers to this journal. And I just want to add, as a society journal, obviously any proceeds from the journal we will put back into the community with events and grants and sponsorship and so on. So I think it's a great journal for authors to get behind. And also, maybe if it's a very good European journal, maybe even newspapers, the media, policymakers will get to see some of the information from this paper. It can go through the FEMS website or other ways. So I think it may even be a way to spread our messages to the whole community. And then this can be papers on any aspect of microbiology. It's a fully broad journal with regards to topic and content. All aspects, yes. Which is important. Wonderful. Well, we're just coming up to the end of the hour. And we've got through all of my questions. So well done for giving precise and brief answers. I want to thank you for joining us at the first session, first interview of the conference. We've obviously got four more days to go. I hope it's great fun and I hope everyone enjoys it. I look forward to your sessions later. Yes, thank you. You too. Good luck with the sessions. It's wonderful that we at least have this one even by Zoom. But it's good. Absolutely. No worries. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.