News

Economic expert and entrepreneur Ott Pärna took up the position of Head of Marketing of University of Tartu Delta Centre on 1 October. Erik Puura, UT Vice-Rector for Development, says that the university offered the position of Marketing Director to Pärna to build up and develop the entrepreneurial image of the university.

The University of Tartu requests the honour of your presence at the inaugural lecture by Mark Fišel, UT Professor in Natural Language Processing. The lecture entitled “FREE LUNCH” will be held on 22 January 2020 at 16:15 in the University Assembly Hall.

As a part of Horizon 2020 ERA Chair project MATTER, there will be a Venia Legendi on 23th of January at 14.15 held by ERA Chair holder candidate Dr. Yelong Wei who is Senior Fellow in European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Lecture will be held at Institute of Technology, Nooruse 1-121.

University of Tartu (UT) scientists hope create a solution for chronic infections that do not respond to antibiotic treatment after having discovered mechanisms for listening in on sleeping bacteria. Having recently published a research article on the topic in Scientific Reports with his team, Senior Research Fellow in Molecular Microbiology Arvi Jõers writes about the ability of bacteria to listen in on one other and what this discovery means for medicine.

We are inviting all student teams to participate in the pre-selection round of Kaleidoskoop, the biggest business ideas competition in South Estonia, which is held on 12 December in Spark Hub. Registration is open until midnight on 9 December on the University of Tartu’s Startup Lab webpage.

We are looking for an ambitious researcher who is interested in participating in shaping the research strategies of Institute of Technology in University of Tartu by taking the lead as ERA Chair holder!

University of Tartu Institute of Technology iGEM team participated in international synthetic biology competition iGEM. In the finale, at Boston, USA, the team earned a gold medal thanks for the hard work and dedication. The aim of the project is to decrease the production cost and workload of the wood industry companies.

Recent events in the Estonian fish Industry have brought up a concern regarding Listeria and its influence on health. Listeria is a stick -shaped bacteria with 20 different species. One of which, Listeria monocytogenes, can be harmful to humans. The bacteria got its name from Joseph Lister, who discovered that sterilization of scalpels reduce the risk of future infections.

On the 17th and 18th Ocotber, Institute of Technology held a science communication seminar by Marju Himma-Kadakas in order to give (future) scientists practical tips on how to communicate scientific work to public.

The trends in science communication are moving from simple reporting scientific events towards open, responsible and cooperative interaction with the public. Therefore this course aims to address practical ways of reaching the audiences taking into consideration the previous aspects.

To adapt to new conditions during evolution, organisms change genetically, among other things, and new genes are formed. Viruses, which are grouped under inanimate nature, contribute to the genetic diversity of living organisms.

The ERA Chair in Gas Fermentation Technologies (GasFermTEC) was established at the University of Tartu (UT), Estonia with EU-funds (~2.5m Euro) in 2019 with the aim to address global challenges of biosustainability through integration of gas fermentation technologies with systems and synthetic biology. This project builds upon the recently developed cutting-edge systems biology platform for systematic quantification of CO2 capture using acetogen gas fermentation (Valgepea et al. 2017, Cell Systems; Valgepea et al. 2017, Metabolic Engineering; Valgepea et al.

RNA viruses have compact multifunctional genomes. During the course of infection, the genome or its derivatives must direct translation of virus proteins, genome replication and genome packaging. To realize these multiple roles, RNA virus genomes commonly have many overlapping coding and non-coding functional elements.

The University of Tartu and Graanul Biotech, which belongs to the Graanul Invest Group, will join forces to create a unique platform for training leading specialists who correspond to companies’ wishes and profiles and for cooperation on product development. According to the cooperation agreement, a doctoral student from the University of Tartu will study the properties of wood-derived lignin in his doctoral thesis and cooperate with Graanul Biotech in order to develop the final commercial product.

The future of soft robotic actuation systems with ionic electroactive polymer actuators is very promising especially in the microdomain for cutting edge applications such as micromanipulation systems, medical devices with higher dexterity, soft catheters with built-in actuation, bio-inspired robotics with bettermimicking properties and active compliant micromechanisms. However, still, there are significant challenges in understanding the transduction, developing simpler fabrication approaches and robust control schemes for real-time control.

On Monday, August 26, Professor Johann Gasteiger will give a lecture at the Chemicum of the University of Tartu. A professor at Friedrich Alexander University in Germany talks about "Artificial Intelligence in Chemistry - From Drug Design to the Prediction of Material Properties".

Plants, the primary producers on Earth, use energy from sunlight to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) and water from the soil to produce organic compounds and oxygen, both of which are needed by humans and other heterotrophic organisms. In the epidermis of the aerial parts of plants are stomata, microscopic pores surrounded by a pair of guard cells that control gas exchange between the leaf and the atmosphere, i.e., the uptake of CO2 for photosynthesis and the loss of water via transpiration.