Metabolomics and environmental biotechnology : a workshop of the environmental biotechnology working group of the EC-US task force on biotechnology research

A "Workshop on Metabolomics and Environmental Biotechnology" was organised on 16-17 June 2008 in Mallorca (Spain) as an initiative of the Environmental Biotechnology Working Group of the EC-US Task Force on Biotechnology Research. The Workshop covered topics on metabolomics and functional analysis of microbial communities. Over the last few years a vast amount of information on the (meta)genomes of microorganisms has been generated. The potential exploitation of these discoveries in environmental biotechnology is enormous but requires profound knowledge of the functioning of microbial cells as complex networks of interacting metabolites, which is the aim of metabolomic studies. The potential outcome in relevant aspects for environmental biotechnology, such as the development of novel biocatalysts, novel biomarkers or more efficient and safer processes were also discussed in the workshop.