- Team Leader: Abdellatif Boudabous -


Brief description of the organization:
The University of Tunis El Manar (formerly Université de Tunis) was the first Tunisian university to be founded after the independence. Since 1960, the Faculty of Sciences, the host institution of partner 2, has as a primary aim the excellence in teaching, research and scholarship across a broad range of disciplines including Biology, Geology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and Informatics. It counts at present 556 professors-researchers and more than 12.000 students. The department of Biology organizes PhD schools and Master training courses in several disciplines. UTUN includes 16 research units and 4 research laboratories among which the Laboratory of Microorganisms and Active Biomolecules (LabMBA). For 20 years LabMBA produced original scientific work and publications in the field of fundamental and applied microbiology. Since 1995, LabMBA organises Master courses for young Tunisian and African scientists in the fields of Microbiology, Virology and Mycology. LabMBA has active scientific collaborations with several research groups in European countries, Arabic countries and USA. LabMBA actively participates in several bilateral projects and in consortia for sequencing bacterial genomes (Joint Genome Institute, Gi02091; Génoscope, AP07/08). For its overall contribution to scientific research in Tunisia, in 2008 LabMBA has been awarded with the national presidential price for scientific research and technology in the field of biotechnology.

Main tasks in the projects:
UTUN will contribute to: (i) Work package management; (ii) Updating the web site of the project and the related newsgroup; (iii) Organize the project meetings and the meetings of the Steering Committee; (iv) Recruit three experienced Post Doctoral scientists; (v) Acquire and install new advanced scientific equipments; (vi) Organize all the dissemination initiatives foreseen with the project, destined to the scientific community and the public administrators.

Profiles of staff members:
Prof. Abdellatif Boudabous is responsible for the LabMBA team, composed by 11 scientists. He worked for 28 years on fundamental and applied aspects in microbiology publishing more than 60 scientific papers. The main topics are: microbial diversity in extreme environment including desert systems; agricultural microbiology (entomopathogenic and symbiotic nitrogen fixing bacteria); food microbiology; antibiotic resistance. He coordinated several national and international (bilateral) research projects. The research capacities of the team are based on upgradable bacteriological equipments and deals with expertise in microbial physiology, biochemistry and molecular biology. Ameur Cherif (Assoc. Prof.) and Jihene Essanaa and Chadlia Hamdi (PhD students) have experience with entomopathogenic bacteria, bioassays and insect-microbe interactions for the application of polyvalent symbiotic control on honeybee diseases. Maher Gtari (Assoc. Prof.), Faten Ghodhbane and Imen Essoussi (PhD students) have experience in the ecology of actinobacteria in arid environments including the genera Frankia, Geodermatophilus, Modestobacter, Blastococcus, Kineococcus and Sporichthya. Imene Ouzari (Assoc. Prof.), Imene Fhoula and Houda Amairi (PhD students) have experience in isolation and molecular and enzymatic characterization of plant growth promoting and phytopathogenic bacteria. Atef Jaouani (Assist. Prof.) and Amel Guesmi (PhD student) work on the biotechnological potential for enzyme production from extremophilic bacteria and fungi from arid and saline ecosystems.