Marine Bioremediation Program
Faculty
Boxcoring activities aboard the R/V Clifford A. Barnes (left photo by D. Montagnes, right photo by J. Gray)
Colleges and Schools on this page
College of Ocean and Fishery Science
College of Engineering
School of Medicine
School of Forest Resources
College
of Ocean and Fishery Sciences
School of Oceanography
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Jody
W. Deming: Dr. Deming is the Director of the Marine
Bioremediation Program and co-founder (with Dr. Paul Bentzen) of the new
Marine Molecular Biotechnology Laboratory (MMBL) in the College of Ocean
and Fishery Sciences. She and her students are interested in fundamental
aspects of the behavior of natural microbial populations in the marine
environment, including the production of extracellular degradative enzymes
and the role of motility in bacterial access to organic patches within
sediments. She also studies microbial activities in extreme environments
such as deep-sea and polar sediments, submarine hydrothermal vents, and
the subsurface biosphere beneath seafloor spreading zones. Her molecular
interests include the detection of microorganisms in extreme environments
according to genetic sequences and the biotechnological potential of psychrophilic
and barophilic bacteria. She is an active sea-going scientist, serving
as Chief Scientist of Arctic ice-breaking expeditions, and as a participant
in US and French submersible explorations of the seafloor. She is the recipient
of a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation
and the Arctic Service Medal from the US Coast Guard.
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Dr. Richard
G. Keil: Dr. Keil's work is centered around the
preservation and degradation of organic compounds in aquatic environments,
global carbon cycles, microbial processes that lead to organic matter burial
or preservation, sorptive processes between organics and mineral surfaces,
and application of flow-based separation techniques to process and study
individual components of complex mixtures.
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Dr.
Evelyn Lessard: Dr. Lessard has a long-standing
interest in the associations between protozoa and their prey. She is a
recogized authority on the ecology of heterotrophic dinoflagellates which
can be major grazers in some marine systems. She is particularly interested
in the role that protozoans as grazers of bacteria play in the breakdown
on natural and anthropogenic particles and aggregates in the marine environment.
One link that she is exploring is the exchange of metabolites in both directions
between protozoan predators and bacterial prey. She has other general and
specific interests in microzooplankton ecology, oceanic and coastal microbial
food web dynamics, estimating protist growth rates with rRNA, and exploring
carotenoid pigments as biomass analogs for heterotrophic protists.
School of Fisheries
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Dr. Russell
P. Herwig: Dr. Herwig is a molecular microbial
ecologist with a long-term interest in marine microbiology and the biodegradation
of natural and anthropogenic recalcitrant compounds in the environment.
For the past five years he has provided a critical interface between investigators
from Civil Engineering, Fisheries, and Forestry in the development of biological
treatment systems for contaminated groundwater and landfill leachates.
During the past two years he developed modern molecular phylogenetic protocols
for the analysis of the bacterial communities in contaminated and clean
marine sediments. This effort is now supported by an exploratory research
grant from the EPA. In the summer and fall of 1997, Dr. Herwig worked with
the Seattle District of the Army Corps of Engineers on a project to determine
the mineralization of representative PAHs on the contaminated beach in
Eagle Harbor. Dr. Herwig teaches a lecture and laboratory undergraduate
course called "Aquatic Environmental and Seafood Microbiology", and co-teaches
with Dr. Stuart Strand a graduate course called "Microbial Degradation
of Toxic Contaminants."
College
of Engineering Sciences
Department of Civil Engineering
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Dr. John
Ferguson: Dr. Ferguson has extensive engineering
experience with the treatment of recalcitrant, particulate wastes in aquatic
media. He considers the roles of microorganisms explicitly. His work with
anaerobic-aerobic treatments began in the mid 1980's (Woods 1985) on degradation
of chlorinated phenolics in freshwater systems, including efforts to isolate
anaerobic cocultures capable of degrading selected compounds (Hakulinen
et al. 1984). At present he is studying sequential, reactor-based anaerobic
and aerobic treatment of bleaching waters from pulp and paper manufacture
and has developed new projects specifically related to the bioremediation
of marine sediments contaminated with chlorinated and polyaromatic hydrocarbons
(PAH). The main emphasis of this work is measuring the extent of contaminant
removal and trying to understand the mechanisms and biodegradation by anaerobic
and aerobic enriched microbial communities in both freshwater and marine
systems. He also continues studies of advanced biological treatment systems,
mainly for chlorinated aliphatics, for groundwater remediation. This project,
supported by the NIEHS Superfund Basic Research Initiative, focuses on
reactor modeling, involving biodegradation and growth kinetics as well
as mass transport. He has received the prestigious Harrison Prescott Eddy
Award for Outstanding Research three times (1974, 1978, 1984).
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Dr.
H. David Stensel: Dr. Stensel's research is in
the area of biological processes, including reactor designs and application
of specialized bacteria for degradation of toxic priority pollutants. He
has worked extensively with cometabolic degradation of chlorinated organic
compounds, methods to enhance biodegradation and various reactor designs,
including fixed film processes. Prior to his academic career he worked
for a decade in industry dealing with environmental process technology
development and applications. His interests in marine bioremediation concern
methods to enhance PAH degradation and physical and microbial controls
on desorption of toxicants in marine sediments. He has received (1987)
the prestigious Harrison Prescott Eddy Award for outstanding research.
Department of Chemical Engineering
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Dr.
Barbara Krieger-Brockett: Dr. Krieger-Brockett
focuses on reactor theory and the behavior of complex reacting systems,
with an emphasis on identification of kinetic mechanisms and rate parameters,
rate-limiting steps, and slow transport of reactants and products to and
from the reaction zone. These reacting systems are invariably related to
problems of the environment; in the past, problems in atmospheric chemistry,
and in the present, the study of polluted marine sediments. In her research
she uses mathematical simulation to describe the reaction rates of the
microbes in a benthic consortium, the concentration profiles of their nutrients
and metabolic products, as well as the biodegradation and dilution of the
toxic hydrophobic chemicals or xenobiotics in marine sediments. She and
her students then attempt to determine which processes are central to enhancing
the overall toxic degradation rates, much like process optimization in
the chemical industry. For example, in marine sediments the dissolution
rate of the hydrophobic compounds or desorption from the sediment grains
appears to be a very slow process, and may limit the bioavailability of
toxics to microbes that can metabolise them. For experimental determination
of some of the needed parameters, she uses statistically designed experiments
to maximize the reliability of the parameters.
School
of Medicine
Department
of Genetics
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Dr.
Clement E. Furlong: Dr. Furlong has experience
in characterizing the mechanisms and regulation of microbial nutrient transport
systems. He has isolated a number of stable strains with elevated levels
of transport and metabolism of specific nutrients. He has purified and
characterized a number of receptor proteins involved in transport and chemotaxis.
During the past ten years, he has been working on problems related to bioremediation.
He cloned and sequenced the E. coli xylose isomerase gene which was then
expressed in yeast. He has developed protein-based bioadsorber systems
for removal of pollutants from aqueous environments. Three patents have
been issued for cadmium adsorbers. He is collaborating with electrical
engineers and bioengineers on the development of protein-based biosensors
to use in automating the bioadsorbers and for mapping spill sites, which
has led to issuance of a fundamental patent on a digital biosensor. He
has developed bioreactors for the automated production of proteins for
use in bioadsorbers, biosensors, and as biodegradative enzymes. Recently,
he has cloned and sequenced the cDNAs that encode human and rabbit paraoxonase,
an organophosphate hydrolase that also hydrolyzes several nerve agents
and organophosphate insecticides. He has more than ten years experience
in gene sequencing, analysis, and cloning, site-specific mutagenesis and
genetic engineering.
Department
of Microbiology
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Dr.
James T. Staley: Dr. Staley is a general microbiologist
with extensive experience in the ecology and systematics of soil and aquatic
bacteria. He has long-term interests in several ecological topics including
the role of microorganisms in the formation of desert varnish and the biology
of sea-ice bacteria. He is also interested in the taxonomy and physiology
of aquatic heterotrophs including in particular the gas vacuolate bacteria,
sea-ice bacteria, prosthecate bacteria and bacteria involved in bioremediation.
Since 1976 he has served as Trustee and Editorial Board Member of the Bergey
Manual of Systematic Bacteriology, the definitive guide to the systematics
of bacteria. He takes primary responsibility for teaching environmental
microbiology in the School of Medicine. Recent activities related to the
URI include the identification of bacteria associated with degradation
of chlorinated aromatic and aliphatic compounds and bacteria capable of
chitin degradation. Prof. Staley is the author of numerous scientific papers
and books including portions of Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology
.
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Dr.
John A. Leigh: Dr. Leigh, an expert on methanogens,
is developing the first genetic model for a marine methanogen using Methanococcus
marpaludis as the organism of choice. The genetic methodologies of cloning,
transposon insertion, mutagenesis, transformation, homologous recombination,
selection by constructed antibiotic resistance, and lambda library construction
are being pursued to achieve this goal. Because M.marpaludis produces carbon
monoxide dehydrogenase (CODH) and dehalogenates organic toxicants, a better
understanding of the genetic regulation of these processes is of key interest
to goals in marine bioremediation.
College
of Forest Resources
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Dr. Stuart E.
Strand: Dr. Strand focuses upon the roles of oxidants
in degradation of refractory anthropogenic materials. He has extensive
experience in the study of cometabolism, particularly regarding the abilities
of methane-oxidizers to degrade toxic compounds. His recent work has included
a systematic exploration of the cometabolic capabilities of oxygenase-expressing
bacteria in the marine environment. This work has extended the range of
compounds that methane oxidizers are known to degrade to include the polyaromatic
hydrocarbons (PAHs). He is also interested in anaerobic degredation of
chlorinated compounds and of the PAHs. His present work is focused on the
enrichment of bacterial PAH degradation using iron, nitrate, and manganese
as oxidants. Dr. Strand's lab has also developed genetic probes for the
detection of nitrifying bacteria in marine environments and is working
on procedures for the extraction and quantification of DNA from sediments.
UW
Marine Bioremediation Program
Last Modified: December 29 1999 by seashell@u.washington.edu
© Copyright 1995-1999 UW MBP