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Microomics Systems S.L., a leading Spanish metagenomics company and a leading partner of comprehensive microbiome analysis services, has announced a restructure of its executive team in order to embark on a new growth phase. 

Co-founder, and current CEO, Pedro González Torres will take on the role of Chief Scientific Officer (CSO), leading the company’s scientific and technical strategy, driving the development of new services and metagenomic solutions. This will expand the portfolio and consolidate Microomics’ position as a key partner in microbiome analysis. 

Having guided the company from its beginnings to become a leading business, Pedro is handing over executive leadership to Jordi Navarro Oller, who joined as CEO last March. Jordi has 30 years’ experience in the healthcare and life sciences industry, having developed his career at companies including Bio-Rad, Amersham Pharmacia Biotech, Siemens Healthineers and Grifols. His strong track record in commercial leadership, both nationally and internationally, will be instrumental in accelerating Microomics’ expansion into new markets. 

This new structure will enable Microomics to prepare for a period of strategic growth and strengthen its position and capabilities to innovate in the microbiome analysis field. 

 World Microbiome Day: 27 June 

Launched in 2018 by APC Microbiome Ireland, an SFI centre at University College Cork, World Microbiome Day aims to raise public awareness of the importance of microorganisms in all ecosystems. 

Since then, on 27 June each year, the scientific, clinical and industrial communities have come together to share advances and resources, and to promote open and responsible microbiome science. The 2025 edition is organised under the slogan ‘Microbiome 101: What You Need to Know’, reflecting the commitment to making information accessible while maintaining rigour. 

The global agenda of activities, educational materials and calls for events are available on the conference’s official website at worldmicrobiomeday.com. 

We have spoken many times about the role of microorganisms in practically all ecosystems. Our work supporting researchers and companies gives us detailed knowledge of many research fields at a national and international level. Today, we have compiled a list of the more than 55 different matrices that we have worked on, categorised by one of the major areas of microbiome study: 

• Clinical and Pharmacology: Diagnosis of digestive diseases, development of bacterial therapies, response to immunotherapy, involvement of the microbiome as a diagnostic or prognostic co-factor in oncological, endocrine, psychological, dermatological and reproductive pathologies. 
• Nutrition and Public Health: Interventional studies evaluating the mechanisms of action and targets of prebiotics, symbiotics and postbiotics, personalised postbiotics and dietary guidelines based on microbial profiles. Studies of the relationship between the microbiota and other systems, such as the gut-brain axis and the skin-gut axis, are also conducted. 
• Agriculture and Soil: The biostimulant effect can be used for soil regeneration, biological pest control and drought resilience through plant-microbiome engineering. It can also be used to increase sustainable productivity, sometimes as part of a circular economy. 
• Ecology and climate: Modelling of the carbon and nitrogen cycles, habitat restoration, monitoring of pollutants, and study of the ecological niches of endangered species and environmental impact. The microbiome plays a significant role as a bioindicator of human impact, helping us to understand these cycles in open systems. 
• Industry and the Bioeconomy: This includes precision fermentation, the production of customised biopolymers and enzymes, and bioremediation. Metagenomics can be used as a biomanufacturing and mining tool to explore genes with high industrial potential in biofermentation processes. 
• Veterinary and Aquaculture: Microbiomes that improve productivity, animal welfare, food safety, health, reproduction and animal nutrition. Analysing microbiota through massive sequencing technologies has transformed animal nutrition and reproduction, facilitating sustainable and scalable production by providing a mechanistic understanding of immune and metabolic processes. 

Microomics has played a key role in the development of various industries and research fields, many of which have emerged in recent years. 

Can you think of any other applications? Join the conversation in the comments below, or email us at info@microomics.com. We’d love to collaborate with you and help to increase the impact of your project. 

This date commemorates the US Supreme Court’s 1980 ruling that a genetically modified bacterium was patentable. 

Biotechnology is a success story of collaboration between research and industry, turning laboratory breakthroughs into solutions that are already improving the lives of millions of people. This includes gene therapies and RNA vaccines developed in record time, as well as applications in bioremediation, the industrial production of molecules and the improvement of agricultural soils. 

Many major milestones have been reached in the last 20 years, but there are still many more to come, such as the search for and synthesis of new antibiotics and the decarbonisation of industry. 

• 2006: iPS cells (induced pluripotent stem cells). Japanese researcher Shinya Yamanaka discovered that somatic cells could be ‘reprogrammed’ using a combination of transcription factors, known as the ‘Yamanaka cocktail’. 

• 2010: First synthetic cell (JCVI-syn1.0). 

• 2012: CRISPR-Cas9, for which Charpentier and Doudna were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. However, Francisco J. Mojica (University of Alicante) coined and popularised the term CRISPR, identifying and characterising these regions, thus laying the foundations for the subsequent ‘CRISPR-Cas9 molecular scissors’ tool. 

• 2013–2014: Organs-on-chips and organoids: 3D models that accelerate drug discovery and reduce the need for animal experimentation. 

• 2017: The first CAR-T therapies are approved. The era of personalised immunotherapy begins. 

• 2020: mRNA vaccines against SARS-CoV-2. 

• 2022–2024: Base and prime editing: versions of CRISPR that correct specific DNA sequences without creating double-strand breaks. 

Omics techniques are a fundamental tool for studying the great variability of matrices, factors, molecules and possibilities of biological systems. Behind every landmark there are thousands of gigabytes of genomes, proteomes, metabolomes, metagenomes… and the use of omics allows us to understand, predict and map a biological system. 

At Microomics Systems we work to facilitate the use of omics as a tool in research, clinical and industrial development projects. Data integration and analysis is the only way to be able to establish correlations and patterns on which to make decisions. And that data must be free of methodological bias.

Write to us and schedule your initial meeting free of charge. 

19 May is World Inflammatory Bowel Disease Day, providing an opportunity to raise awareness of these chronic diseases which have a profound effect on the quality of life of those who suffer from them. Here’s a one-minute summary: 

IBD encompasses two main groups of diseases: Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Both are characterised by persistent inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, and both are divided into subgroups. However, they differ in their location and characteristics. 

• Ulcerative colitis primarily affects the colon and rectum, causing ongoing inflammation of the intestinal lining. 
• Crohn’s disease, on the other hand, can affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract, from the mouth to the anus, and impact all layers of the intestinal wall. 

In addition to digestive symptoms, many patients experience extraintestinal symptoms, including arthritis, eye inflammation, skin conditions and chronic fatigue, among others. The disease can have a significant social and emotional impact, particularly on young adults, who tend to be the most affected group and have more social commitments and everyday activities, such as eating out (Q. Guan, J. Immunology Research, 2019).

What causes IBD? 

IBD is a multifactorial disease, although the exact cause is not fully understood. 

Genetic factors 

• There are more than 200 genetic variants associated with an increased risk of IBD, but these alone do not determine the onset of the disease. The three main variants identified in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are: NOD2 (R702W, G908R and 1007fs), IL23R (rs11209026) and ATG16L1 (rs2241880). 

Immunological factors: 

• IBD is associated with a dysregulated immune response, whereby the immune system attacks healthy intestinal tissue. This leads to chronic inflammation and the overproduction of cytokines, such as TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-1β. 

Environmental factors: 

• Smoking, stress, diet and prolonged use of antibiotics or anti-inflammatory drugs may play a role in the onset or exacerbation of symptoms. 

Alterations in the intestinal barrier: 

• A defect in the integrity of the intestinal mucosa may facilitate the entry of inflammatory substances and trigger an exacerbated immune response. 

• A reduction in beneficial bacteria, such as Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and Roseburia spp., which have anti-inflammatory properties, such as producing short-chain fatty acids, such as butyrate. 
• An increase in pro-inflammatory bacteria, such as certain strains of Escherichia coli (especially the adherent-invasive strain in Crohn’s disease). 
• Decreased microbial diversity, which weakens the gut ecosystem’s ability to resist perturbations. Some microorganisms may activate inflammatory pathways or evade control by regulatory T cells. 

The IBD-microbiota relationship 

Intestinal dysbiosis can contribute directly to the onset, continuation and worsening of chronic intestinal inflammation. 

Patients with IBD have an altered microbiota compared to healthy people.

Is there evidence for probiotics for IBD? 

It has to be taken into account that not all patients will respond in the same way, as IBD depends on the aforementioned factors. 

• Bifidobacterium longum 35624 has been shown to improve clinical symptomatology in ulcerative colitis in animal models and clinical trials. 
• Escherichia coli Nissle 1917 competes with pathogens, modulates the immune response, and strengthens the intestinal barrier. 
• Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG. The evidence for its use in IBD is more modest, but some studies in children with ulcerative colitis have shown an improvement in clinical and mucosal response. 

At Microomics, we work together with researchers, hospitals and companies to tackle IBD using omics sciences. Studying the microbiome enables us to address dysbiosis and alleviate symptoms, as well as provide evidence about the cause. This is sometimes achieved by examining the faecal microbiome in children. 

As IBD is such a complex pathology, reducing bias and methodological errors is fundamental to finding informed answers. This is why adequate sampling design, the selection of appropriate technology and the correct analysis pipeline for correlating data with other variables (e.g. biochemistry) are so important. 

Leave us a message on our website and tell us about your project. We will then arrange a free initial meeting to advise you on designing the assay with our 360° platform. 

Bibliography: Q. Guan, J. Immunol. Res., 2019; Groeger et al., Gut Microbes, 2013; Kruis et al., Gut, 2004; Bousvaros et al., 2005.