The University of Bergen (UiB) is an internationally recognized research university. UiB is the most cited university in Norway. UiB has seven faculties and the Department of Biotechnology has a collaboration with the Faculty of Biological Sciences (BiO). Extremophiles and Biotechnology laboratory work with a range of extremophilic microorganisms and their diversity: thermo-acidophilic methane-oxidizing bacteria, Archaea, halophiles, strict anaerobes and hyper stable enzymes from thermophiles with potential for industrial applications. Physiological, genomic and molecular microbiology aspects are being studied as well.

From October 2019 to March 2020, PhD student of Biotechnology department Mashzhan Akzhigit has joined to the “Extremophiles and Biotechnology” research group under supervision of Nils-Kåre Birkeland Aida Kistaubayeva. The goal of this internship was to study samples from hot springs in Almaty region (Kazakhstan) using Metagenomic analysis as part of my PhD project and a part of project “Network for research-based higher education in microbial biotechnology” (CPEA-LT-2017/10061), which is funded by the Eurasian program of the Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education (Diku).

Role Mashzhan Akzhigit of at Extremophiles and Biotechnology research group was to perform a metagenomic analysis of water samples which were collected from hot springs in Almaty region (Kazakhstan) and also to carry out the isolation and description of bacteria with an enzymatic activity using state of the art molecular biology methods.