Summoned by the Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS), European microbiologists met in Madrid from the 4–8th July to celebrate their second congress. Over 1500 scientists attended a comprehensive and intense program that covered a wide spectrum of this essential branch of biology. Microbiologists are interested in all different aspects of the biology of microorganisms, the most abundant and diverse forms of life of our planet: viruses, bacteria, as well as microscopic fungi, protozoa and algae. A whole microscopic world exists that we only began to explore a little more than 100 years ago. Claiming the central role of microorganisms in the development and maintenance of life on Earth, the Congress official t-shirt bore the legend “I live in a microbial world”. It would be unattainable to endeavour to summarize each and every highlight that researchers from 63 countries all over the world presented in the five lectures, 22 symposia and 19 workshops plus special events of the congress, but it should be enough to choose a few headlines to hint at the current good health of European microbiology. For simplification, most of the research work presented in Madrid would fit into three broad mainstream lines: microbes and health (the study, treatment and prevention of infectious diseases), microbes and the environment (microbial ecology, evolution and adaptation to different environments) and biotechnology (practical application of microbiological knowledge to industrial uses, including food preparation and safety). However, biology is currently under-going a revolution, boosted by its interaction with informatics and the remarkable technological advances currently being made. In the last decade this led to what was called the genomic era; however, after the publication of the human genome and that of hundreds of microorganisms, we now speak of the postgenomic era. The Scientific Committee of the Madrid Congress, co-chaired by Eliora Ron and Cesar Nombela, was far-sighted enough to put the focus on the novel ‘’omic’ perspective, to which micro-biology is critically contributing: genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and biomics, for example. The presentation at the congress of the GS20 sequencer by Roche Diagnostics, an innovative DNA sequencing technology that will considerably shorten the time required to process a whole genome, greatly supported this standpoint.