Anaerobes thrive in diverse environments such as the gastrointestinal tracts of humans and many animals, flooded soils, sediments, subsurface aquifers, and extremely hot or salty habitats. Metabolically, anaerobes catalyze reactions that are critical to the global cycling of carbon and other elements, biofuel production, waste treatment, and environmental cleanup. The anaerobic way of life involves novel reactions such as reductive dechlorination and carboxy or fumarate addition to hydrocarbons. Another defining feature of the anaerobic way of life is that a consortium of interacting microbial species rather than a single microbial species serves as the catalytic unit for anaerobic metabolism. We are interested in characterizing novel anaerobic metabolisms, discovering novel taxa and physiologies, understanding the diversity and structure of anaerobic ecosystems, determining the regulatory mechanisms controlling the anaerobic way of life and the establishment of multispecies consortia, and developing novel technologies for energy production, waste treatment, and environmental cleanup.
Anaerobic Microbiology
