[Music] so we all like natural aquatic environments like a river for example with transparent water green vegetation birds singing or a wild Beach Washed by blue Waves or the ocean full of fishes and corals or the crystal clear ground water don't worry I'm not asking you to imagine the holidays of your dreams in fact the scenario is going to change drastically because I'm going to show you this much less nice picture this is this natural aquatic environment but the water was dramatically contaminated so now I have a question for you do you know which is the link between the two scenarios as all of us we are the link but why because human beings are very inefficient machines from a waste management point of view for example example when we eat we are assimilating just a part of the food all the rest is wasted in form of solid and liquid escrs producing waste water more than 50 cubic met per year of waste waters are produced on average per European but not only all the industries that need to use water in their production processes are producing huge amount of waste Waters so now just think to the huge quantity of waste Waters that can be produced by the 8 billion people on this planet but what are exactly these waste Waters and where do they end up waste waters are basically water at the beginning taken from natural water sources for the production chain of for being used in the production chain of many anthropic activities for all our exigencies more in general at the end of the production chain this water is not any more only water it's water plus contaminants consider that in our ways there are also contaminants like antibiotics hormones pesticides viruses colorants and many many other toxic compounds so B basically before giving back to the environment the wastewaters they pass through what is called a wastewater treatment plant is it the end of the story no unfortunately no treating the water we are contaminating is very expensive energy consuming and a huge source of gas emissions just consider that wastewater treatment plant are respons responsble of about 35% of the total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions but not only the problem is that together with our waste we are also losing very precious elements that we could reuse also as energy sources for example nitrogen nitrogen is an essential component in the proteins of our body but nitrogen it's also a a key ingredient in fertilizers just think that in the standard way of producing 1 kilo of nitrogen for fertilizers you need to burn about 1 kilo of fossil fuels and for this producing also carbon dioxide and we are wasting the nitrogen another example phosphorus phos phosphorus is a fundamental component of the molecules in our body that are carrying the energy phosphorus is also a ingredient for constructing car batteries for example consider that the natural sources of phosphorus on our planet are limited it's going to finish so we really must think to the fact that we are wasting [Music] it all these aspects cannot be ignor in an era where it's so important to find new ways for renewable energies so how can we at the same time remove contaminants and recover the precious elements and the chemical energy in the water we are wasting every day how can we reshape the waste water cycle in the logic of a circular economy and here here we are arriving to what am I working on as a researcher at inria I am exploring and studying new biotechnologies for treating waste Waters in order to find more efficient Solutions in terms of gas emissions energy costs and also providing renewable energy sources but before arriving at the of what I'm working on why biotechnologies you must know that in nature a micro world is active made of microorganism and when they are all together they can do very beautiful things for the environment that's why we want to exploit and amplify their potential growing them in an environment that we can technically control called a bio reactor in particular I am studying bioprocesses involving microalgae and bacteria we can grow them on waste Waters because they are able to use the contaminants in our waste and to transform them in other molecules but wait one moment who are these guys microalgae are very fascinating microorganism they can accumulate nitrogen and phosphorus in the cell for example it means that when they are growing on waste Waters they can accumulate the nitrogen and the phosphorus in our waste to transform them in other molecule valuable molecules that we can further extract for producing biofuels bioplastics biofertilizers other byproducts so entering in this logic of circular economy if you want micrology are like microscopic plants growing in the water they can perform photosynthesis that means that they can capture the energy from the Sun to transform the carbon dioxide in biological materials like all the plants in consequence of photosynthesis microalgae can produce oxygen that they can provide to other microorganisms to grow like bacteria instead of supplying it artificially that means saving lots of energy and money bacteria a part of consuming oxygen can provide lots of benefits to microalgae because they can provide vitamins for growth breaking down complex molecules for algae and also provide them with carbon dioxide for photosynthesis so growing hundreds of different species all together in a bioreactor we have created an environment where billions of possible interactions are possible and understanding these billions of possible interactions is actually where things become very very complicated so how how we can understand the Dynamics of this Micro World of interactive microorganism how we can control it and here we finally arrive to what I am working on as a researcher at inria I am developing mathematical representations of these ecosystems to see what is happening but in a computer mathematic models are very powerful you can see the invisible thanks to them they can really help you in understanding what is happening behind the scene of this world of microalgae and bacteria and how to direct it for giving clean water back to the environment and for recovering the precious resources we are wasting every day these models are mathematical mod STS very difficult to master adjusting the output of these models according to the reality is very challenging and requires real data experimental measurements that's why in my research group at inria we are a joint team together with biologist and microbiologists from the laboratory of orography of V franch so developing a mathematical representation of the reality seems a very exciting job and indeed it is but sometimes this uh micro world of interactive microorganism it's so intricated that its complexity is pushing us really at the limits of our understanding of our knowledge and sometimes indeed we really do not understand anyway giving up is never the favorite choice of a research we must perseverate for weeks months sometimes for years until we find a way that can work and this is actually what am I struggling with in my job I am trying to find a new way instead of being stuck by the lack of knowledge in biological systems I am trying to explore a new numerical approach that is involving artificial intelligence artificial intelligence nowadays is widely used for plenty of applications like uh image recognitions or cars that can drive alone but still it was not deeply used to explore the complexity of biological system and that's why I want to involve in this story of wasw treatment artificial neural networks because I do believe that lots of key informations are hidden in the data we collect and artificial neural networks can learn directly from the data for example we often observe phenomena of inhibition or limitation of the activity of this microorganism and we don't know why but artificial neural networks can find in the data the reason of the problem the information we are missing because they are mathematically designed to have a learning process similar to a human brain even if of course it's an artificial brain so artificial intelligence can really give a very important contribution for making more efficient this a synergistic collaboration between our friends microalgae and bacteria to transform our waste into resources to reduce gas emissions and of course to give clean water back to the environment so I want to use artificial intelligence for climate change mitigation for reducing the energy need and for giving clean water back to the environment but all these all these is just the top of the iceberg artificial intelligence has really the potential to give very fundamental contribution to plenty of environmental and ecological efforts because these algorith can process big data set from a huge network of environmental sensors they can track deforestation air and water quality or the health and ecosystem for example artificial intelligence can detect the biodiversity just from the noises recorded in a forest so in conclusion by exploiting the power of artificial intelligence we can really gain deer insights into environmental challenges and work towards a more sustainable and ecologically balanced future Merc you