This month I had the chance to visit the ‘smallest’ museum in the world: Micropia in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The goal of Micropia, opened in 2014, is to distribute knowledge about microbes to the general public. The museum is part of the zoo Artis but can be visited independently and has a separate entrance. The museum offers a great introduction into the wonderful world of microorganisms. Below an impression of the exhibition.
The tree of life at the entrance showing a ‘representative selection of 1500 species, 500 of each domain’ the data comes from NCBI. A neat feature; the species lighting up in UV light are only visible by microscope whereas the non illuminated branches (ie. mammals in the bottom right corner) do not.
A tardigrade ~6,000x enlarged, living tardigrades are also present and visible under the microscope. I’m wondering wether its genome is also contaminated?
Micropia also features an in-house lab used to maintain the living components of the collection.
In a separate room a stir flask with Photobacterium phosphoreum produced a beautiful glow.
‘Wall of fame’ with more than 100 microorganisms in large petri dishes
Close-up on the wall of fame, Aspergillus oryzae (used to ferment soybeans to produce soy sauce), Aspergillus arachidicola (discovered on peanuts), Klebsiella (this one was only named by genus) and a specimen just named ‘yeast’
Downstairs several product were featured that could not exist without microorganisms such as yoghurt, kimchi and ‘delicious’ pickled herring.
Overall the museum does a great job in showing the presence and use of microbes in daily life. For example the ‘wall of fame’ contains all kind of household attributes together the microorganisms that are commonly found on the objects. Furthermore there is a nice collection of examples of useful microorganisms to breakdown waste or produce medicine. All this is vividly illustrated with a wealth of interactive installations.
I was a bit time constrained so I might have missed it, but there was little emphasis for potential of engineered microbes. With museum sponsors such as BASF, DSM, Galapagos, MSD, I would expect that a significant portion of the exhibition would be dedicated to GMOs and the endless possibilities of synthetic biology and metabolic engineering. For example by showcasing the bio-production of insulin, artemisinin, or biofuel using microbes. I think the museum would be a great platform to continue the discussion in society on the use of GMOs and highlight the positive aspects.
In conclusion a great way to spend a few hours and get to know more about the more invisible forms of life.