Dear colleagues,
It is our great pleasure to welcome you in Oviedo.
This is the third International Symposium organized on Propionibacteria and Bifidobacteria. After several Symposia that since 1995 were dedicated to Propionibacteria, the Organizers decided to gather both Propionibacteria and Bifidobacteria in the Symposium held in Saint Malo, France in 2004. After this, another Symposium was also celebrated in Wadahl, Norwey, in 2007.
The Scientific Program of this third Symposium has been designed trying to cover fields of major current interest in the research and applications of these two genera of bacteria.
The diversity of dairy products containing Propionibacteria and Bifidobacteria has abruptly increased in lasts years and an effort is being made for obtaining strains with improved technological properties. These microorganisms are able to produce many compounds of extraordinary interest such as polysaccharides, CLA, bacteriocins and many others. Their relationship with the surrounding microorganisms of the intestinal microbiota as well as with eukaryotic cells of the host determines health benefits attributed to them. The improvement of genetic tools and the application of high throughput techniques as genomics and proteomics to the study of such interactions are greatly contributing to improve our understanding on the mechanisms of beneficial actions of these bacteria. In addition to this, the requirement imposed by the new European Regulation on the strict scientific demonstration and further Evaluation by EFSA of Health Claims attributed to products containing these microorganisms, raise a new challenge for the industry and the scientific community.
The five scientific sessions of this Symposium will address these subjects.
We hope that this Symposium could serve as a good meeting point for people working with Propionibacteria and Bifidobacteria and that you can have time also to enjoy Oviedo and Asturias.
With our best regards,
Clara G. de los Reyes-Gavilán (Chair)
On behalf of the Organizing Committee