The agreement was signed in Kazan on Saturday, June 17th.
Kazan University was represented by Rector Ilshat Gafurov, Director of IFMB Andrey Kiyasov, and Vice-Rector Linar Latypov. They met with Director of the Institute of Microbiology of University of Stuttgart Georg Sprenger. Before the negotiations Dr. Sprenger held two lectures for KFU students and staff and toured the University.
Ilshat Gafurov told the guest about the current objectives, «Medicine and agricultural technology are two priority research areas in Tatarstan. One of our goals is to extricate agriculture from antibiotics. Their use is becoming a problem now».
Dr. Sprenger agreed that the issue is pertinent all over the world. His Institute is engaged in bacteria research, their mutations and protein modification for agricultural and healthcare applications. University of Stuttgart has ongoing cooperation with several pharmaceutical companies, including one project concerning immunostimulatory lactobacilli for baby food. The product is currently in lab testing.
Such research may now be started in Kazan. The visitor expressed his satisfaction with what he had seen, “I was pleasantly surprised by how far Kazan University had advanced. Besides, many types of equipment which I saw here are also present in my lab. I think there will be no complications whatsoever during data exchange or result checks”.
There has already been contact between the two parties. Namely, KFU Professor Marat Yusupov visited Dr. Sprenger in 2015, and Structural Biology Lab employee Aydar Bikmullin spent a three-month internship in Stuttgart in 2016. The publication on Staphylococcus ribosome structure is in preparation by KFU, University of Stuttgart, and University of Strasbourg.
Kazan University and its new German partner are now ready to broaden the spectrum of joint research in microbiology.