Giving voice to the invisible allies of environmental health: this is the main goal of the innovative project titled “Fantastic Microbes and Where to Find Them”, the second campaign of BiUniCrowd, the crowdfunding programme of the University of Milano-Bicocca.
The project aims to explore and promote microbial biodiversity in urban spaces, starting from the university campus, and to foster a new participatory approach to science.
Microorganisms, often labelled as threats, are in fact essential for human and ecosystem health. They regulate environmental balance, purify air, water, and soil, and our symbiosis with them is necessary for survival and the prevention of many chronic diseases. However, over 99 percent of microbial species remain unknown, and public perception is still influenced by the fear of pathogens, despite only a small fraction of bacteria being actually harmful. Changing this narrative is urgent, and actively involving people in scientific research is key.
The campaign, carried out in collaboration with KBase – an advanced bioinformatics analysis platform from the U.S. Department of Energy that supports the publication of open scientific data and science education – and Simbio, which contributes with its scientific and communication expertise – is supported by Ideaginger.it, Italy’s most successful crowdfunding platform, and backed by a2a and Thales Alenia Space.
The project is led by Antonia Bruno, microbiology researcher, together with a multidisciplinary and international team of researchers, educators, and students: Giulia Ghisleni, Sara Fumagalli, Alice Armanni, Giulia Soletta, Laura Colombo, Ellen Dow, Elisha Wood-Charlson, Guido Scaccabarozzi, Gloria Mantegazza, and Margherita Aiesi.
“The project was born out of a citizen science experience, the Bicocca Sampling Days, which saw 80 students collect 2,400 urban microbiome samples from squares and green areas across campus,” explains Antonia Bruno, project team leader. “It started off almost playfully, but the enthusiasm and curiosity of the students pushed us to do more. Now we want to offer them a real opportunity to train on real data and, at the same time, change how society perceives microorganisms.”
The crowdfunding campaign aims to raise €10,000 to support the initiative’s three main goals: sequencing the bacterial DNA of 200 samples, organising a free training workshop for 20 students, and launching awareness initiatives to engage the community in the discovery and protection of microbial biodiversity. Everyone can help achieve these goals by donating on the campaign page by 14 June.
Each donation from supporters can be rewarded with a “gift”, including: the opportunity to take part in the “Excursion with Simbio”, an activity to discover how the wild outdoors can serve as an open-air microbiome lab, or “The tools of the trade”, an exclusive kit with swab, culture plates and sampling protocol that allows participants to collect samples from their own environment, observe bacterial growth, share result images and – if at least 25 people participate – contribute to the creation of a real collective microbial art piece.