CPSBB presented science to society at the European Researchers’ Night 2021

 

 

As a part of the  K-TRIO  5  project, CPSBB participated for the third consecutive year in the  European  Researchers’  Night  (ERN) – initiative of the European Commission, which took place in 29 European countries on 24 September 2021. ERN aims to  promote research careers to young people regardless of the level of their scientific background. The  event  engages  families,  pupils  and  students  with  research  activities,  brings researchers closer to society and inspires young people to choose science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) for their profession.

 

 

One of the CPSBB’s initiatives was a  photo  contest,  “Nature” , dedicated to capturing the environment’s magnificent power and beauty. Almost 40 participants with over 100 photographs took part in the contest, and their work was published on the Facebook profile  page  of CPSBB. The first three contestants to win the most public votes were awarded a diploma and photography books.

 

 

Aiming to promote the scientific profession CPSBB presented one of the Center’s leading researchers – Dr. Veselin Petrov. He talked about the opportunities for educational and professional growth, which the research profession has given to him. Dr. Petrov is the manager of the  RESIST  project. RESIST is the first research project coordinated by the CPSBB, funded by The European Commission via the Horizon 2020 programme. The Center is collaborating with five internationally  renowned scientific institutions.   The   project  aims  at  unravelling  the  molecular  mechanisms  of  the resurrection  plants  to  withstand  extreme  drought.  These  plants could reveal some molecular mysteries to discover ways to combat the constantly deteriorating conditions for plants’ cultivation, improve the crops’ resistance and quality, and adapt them to climate changes. In Bulgaria, the species Haberlea rhodopensis (or Orpheus Plant) represents the resurrection plants and CPSBB focuses the research on it as it can resist up to 3 years to complete drought.

Dr. Veselin Petrov focuses his research on the Bulgarian plant Haberlea rhodopensis.

 

The European Researchers’ Night at CPSBB continued with Dr. Amol Nankar from India. He is a researcher at the Vegetable breeding department of the Center. Dr. Nankar presented the unique vegetable crops in Bulgaria and one of the projects he is currently working on. It aims to create a collection of peppers and tomato varieties. The project investigates the crops’ resistance, tolerance, and metabolic properties to create vegetables with improved quality.

Dr. Amol Nankar works on a project for the creation of a core collection of peppers and tomato varieties.

 

Assoc. Prof. Petya Barkalova, Doctor of Sciences in Philology, Dr. Veselin Petrov, and Dr. Nikola Staykov from CPSBB made a fascinating discussion about the generative grammar of genes and why geneticists and linguists talk the same language.