Director of National Institute of Biology Prof. Dr. Tamara Lah Turnšek at the “EU-Brazil Technology and Innovation Forum”

The B.BICE+ organization, which promotes research and innovation between Brazil and the EU, prepared an "EU-Brazil Technology and Innovation Forum" which took place between 22 and 25 September 2014 in the city of Belem in Brazil.

The cooperation of the National Institute of Biology with the researchers in Brazil includes virtually all areas in which the Institute is engaged: the impact of insecticides on the environment, spiders research, research regarding the introduction of new plant species into a particular environment, the impact of global warming on biodiversity, research speleobiology and taxa, biodiversity of groundwater, plant diseases (especially of economically important plants), research for the development of environmentally less harmful pesticides and genetically modified organisms.

This is in certain phases easier to implement in Brazil than in Slovenia, which is subject to much tougher EU measures regarding the coexistence of genetically modified crops with other crops. In the case of genetically modified organisms, the development in techniques of detection of these organisms in the environment is very topical. Brazilian and Slovenian scientists are also involved in research on the toxicity of cyanobacteria and research in the highly topical field of natural substances to prevent cancer.

At the meeting, the Director of NIB took the opportunity to search for Brazilian partners who would be interested in biosensors and a special flotation device for automatic capture and analysis of water samples. The device is the result of cooperation between Prof. Dr. Bojan Sedmak, a scientific councilor at NIB, and a Slovenian company Archel. Prof. Dr. Lah Turnšek also presented a long-standing and successful cooperation between NIB and the Brazilian Agricultural Institute -EMBRAPA, which with its more than 8000 researchers is the largest agricultural institute in the world.