Report Calls for Accelerated
Research on Microorganisms That Shape Our World
Contact: Peggy McNult
pmcnult@asmusa.org
Washington, DC - February
14, 2008 - 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.
A full copy of the report and
further recommendations can be found on the
Academy website at www.asm.org/colloquia. To
receive a printed copy of The Uncharted Microbial
World: Microbes and Their Activities in the
Environment email the Academy at colloquia@asmusa.org.
Source:
www.asm.org/Media/index.asp?bid=56498