On 9 February, Prof. Paul Wilmes, head of the Systems Ecology group at the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) of the University of Luxembourg, was elected as a member of the executive board of the Section des Sciences of the Institut Grand-Ducal.
The Section des Sciences aims to contribute to the progress and propagation of natural, physical and mathematical sciences in the Grand Duchy. Dating back to 1850, it regroups leading specialists from different backgrounds, organises lectures to bring science to a wide audience and awards prizes to Luxembourg-born or -based researchers. “I feel very honoured to be part of a national institution with such old roots and traditions. The Section des Sciences of the Institut Grand-Ducal is Luxembourg’s equivalent to an Academy of Science,” states Prof. Wilmes.
To become an effective, elected member, he wrote an article entitled “The ecology of the unseen” that is now published in the archives of the Section des Sciences. In his publication, he describes the profound impact that humankind is having on our own microbial ecology. On a global scale, not only are we having an impact on the biodiversity of organisms that we can see with the naked eye, but our modern lifestyles also affect our microbiome due to e.g., overuse of antibiotics or unhealthy diets. By doing so, humans are affecting key microbial processes in their bodies without fully understanding the possible repercussions.
Prof. Wilmes’ research mainly focuses on gaining better understanding of microbiomes in and on our bodies, the functions they fulfil in physiological processes and how they could be used as a resource for the development of novel drugs.
Due to his expertise in the field, he was also recently elected President of the Luxembourg Society for Microbiology (LSfM). The society was founded in 2016 and Prof. Wilmes was one of its founding members. It encourages exchanges and networking between microbiologists coming from different backgrounds, from academia to hospitals and industry. “The LSfM organises conferences and workshops but also offers training activities to support students. We want to bring microbial research forward by connecting researchers and promoting their research. One of the reasons that Luxembourg researchers were able to respond so rapidly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic was that a network of microbiologists already existed in the form of the LSfM.” explains Prof. Wilmes. And he concludes: “Through both my involvement in the Luxembourg Society for Microbiology and my membership in the Institut Grand Ducal, I am delighted to be able to further actively contribute to the thriving scientific community in Luxembourg.”