News: Unexplored microbes hold incredible potential for science and industry

Unexplored microbes hold incredible potential for science and industry

Humans live in the midst of a seething, breathing microbial world.
Microorganisms populate every conceivable habitat, both familiar and exotic,
from the surface of the human skin, to rainforest floors, to hydrothermal
vents in the ocean floors.

Despite the powerful and pervasive role of microbes in sustaining life, most
of the microbial world remains a mystery. This is the subject of The
Uncharted Microbial World: Microbes and Their Activities in the Environment,
a new report released by the American Academy of Microbiology.

The report is the result of a colloquium convened by the American Academy of
Microbiology in February 2007. Researchers in microbiology, marine science,
pathobiology, evolutionary biology, medicine, engineering, and other fields
discussed ways to build on and extend recent successes in microbiology, and
the report is a record of their discussions and recommendations.

Microbes fulfill many functions that make life on Earth possible. They are
the engines behind the global biogeochemical cycles that release oxygen and
absorb greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. They recycle dead material into
useful nutrients for new growth. They influence food webs, bioenergy
production, waste management and treatment, food production, and symbiotic
nitrogen fixation for plants.

"As the number of people on the planet grows, reliance on microorganisms to
perform these critical tasks will grow as well," says Carrie Harwood of the
University of Washington, one of the report's authors. "The stakes are high,
and we need to accelerate the pace of discovery."

Because microbes play so many roles in so many environments, they hold
incredible potential for industry, agriculture, and medicine. Bioprospecting
has already opened the door to many commercial applications -- including
probiotics, biofuels, and wastewater treatment. The wealth of bacteria,
viruses, and other microorganisms that have yet to be cultivated or
understood offer a tantalizing untapped resource for industry, agriculture,
and medicine.

Not only do microbes shape the environments around us -- they also play
complicated roles in the human body. "We have very limited understanding of
complicated microbial environments at work in the body, such as the gut and
the teeth," Harwood says.

Much more microbial research is needed to understand microorganisms and tap
into their potential, and the report offers a number of recommendations
related to methodology and research tools, including:

-- Researchers need more methods to mimic the conditions microorganisms
encounter in their natural habitats, particularly in conditions in
low-nutrient environments and in nutrient and oxygen gradients that form at
surfaces.

-- Microbiology needs to move beyond its dependence on pure cultures of
organisms and appreciate the value of the defined but mixed communities of
microbes. It may not always be possible to separate microorganisms that have
coevolved to fit one another's functions and isolate them in pure cultures.

-- Current technologies for making measurements at the microscale need
enhancement. Work is also needed to miniaturize scanning electron microscopy
and other microscopic tools, develop biosensors, and to generally improve
the ability to make in situ (in place) environmental measurements.

In addition, more collaboration across scientific specialties and with
industry is needed. Collaborations are the hallmark of successful
microbiology research, providing new perspective, fruitful dialog, and
creative approaches.

"Collaborating on microbial studies can be challenging because academic
departments are often structured in ways that inhibit interdisciplinary
research," Harwood explains. "International collaboration also poses
challenges, since strict customs measures have made it very difficult to
move microbiological samples across borders."

More broadly, the report calls for improved training programs in microbial
science that emphasize critical thinking and hypothesis or question
building, noting that such preparation could begin in K-12 classrooms, where
many students could be more effectively introduced to the excitement of
natural discovery. At the graduate level, one of the key needs identified in
the report is the lack of training in physiology -- knowledge that is
critical to interpreting the vast amount of genomics data being generated by
current research.

Source: American Society for Microbiology
http://www.physorg.com/news122298289.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek


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