Researcher Pilar Domingo-Calap, coordinator of the “Virus Hunters” workshop.

The activity, within the framework of the Igualment Fest organized by the Valencia City Council to celebrate gender equality from an artistic, social and cultural perspective, promotes knowledge of the problem of resistant bacteria, as well as the use of phages as antimicrobial therapy. The workshop, aimed at children, is taught by Pilar Domingo, principal researcher of the Environmental and Biomedical Virology group at the Universitat de València.

The Universitat de València will carry out the Virus Hunters workshop at the Igualment Fest, which is celebrated on Sunday the 28th. The activity consists of searching for phages, the viruses that infect bacteria, in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento. Through this activity, girls and boys will learn the danger of misuse of antibiotics and the need to investigate alternative therapeutic approaches that allow treating bacterial infections specifically and effectively, something for which phages are promising. You can participate from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Sunday.

“Virus Hunters” is a workshop created and coordinated by UV scientist Pilar Domingo-Calap. It is the result of her work as principal researcher of the Environmental and Biomedical Virology group of the Institute of Integrative Systems Biology (I2SysBio), a joint center of the CSIC and the University of Valencia, which she leads in the Valencian Community “SUPERFAGO”. This pioneering project seeks to explain to secondary and high school students phage therapy as a therapeutic tool against superbacterial infections, those resistant to antibiotics.

Likewise, Fest will be held in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento of Valencia, on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Gender Violence, celebrated on the 25th. The festival aims to “celebrate gender equality from a positive, artistic, social, cultural and gender perspective, aimed at all citizens,” it explains. Lucia Beamud, Councilor for Equality and Gender and LGTBI Policies, at the presentation of the municipal campaign against sexist violence. The event brings together 23 entities related to the protection and support of women and the fight against gender violence.

The "Virus Hunters" workshop is an action of the Activities Plan of the Scientific Culture and Innovation Unit that has obtained a grant of €22,000 in the call for aid to promote scientific, technological and innovation culture from the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology and the Ministry of Science and Technology. Innovation. This Plan of scientific dissemination activities will be deployed throughout the academic year until June 2022.

More information about the Igualment Fest here.

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