From June 15 to 20, 2025, the 22nd edition of WaterMicro25, the regular meeting of the IWA Specialist Group on Health-Related Water Microbiology, took place in Amersfoort, the Netherlands. In addition to the many presentations and poster contributions, the highlight of our ICC activities was certainly the workshop “Genetic Methods in Water Quality Testing”.
The workshop was organized by ICC Water & Health together with the Global Water Pathogen Project and the KWR Water Research Institute. Led by Andreas Farnleitner and Joan Rose (Michigan State University) and coordinated by Katalin Demeter, the workshop focused on genetic methods in microbiological water quality analysis and how these approaches can be transferred from academic research to broad application in the water sector. The workshop built on the previous year's global WaterSurvey, which examined the global status of the use of genetic methods and the opportunities and hurdles for their broader implementation.
It began with short presentations on monitoring and control programs that are already benefiting from the use of genetic tools. The audience then took part in an interactive exercise - the Expert Poll - in which almost 200 participants identified the most promising genetic parameters for application in the areas of drinking water, bathing water and wastewater-based surveillance (WBES). The high level of participation made the survey a great success. This was followed by a presentation on existing standards and regulations in the field of genetic methods as well as insights into ongoing analyses of the WaterSurvey data.
The event concluded with a panel discussion with international representatives from science and regulation. This high-level exchange underlined the increasing momentum behind the standardisation and regulatory anchoring of genetic methods in water quality analysis.
As the cherry on the cake of the conference, our Sophia Steinbacher was able to win one of the four poster prizes for her recently published paper on the well thread (Crenothrix) in the top journal Water Research, despite extremely high competition (more than 320 posters!).
The next edition of this conference series will take place in Costa Rica in two years' time.