Month: October 2024

I’m excited to announce that Sebastian Bak Bjørnskov has joined my team as a 4+4 PhD student. Sebastian will be diving into research on the mechanisms of interspecies interactions facilitated by geoconductors. With a keen interest in genetics, he’ll be utilizing techniques like gene deletions to uncover the mechanistic details driving these fascinating processes. Sebastian has already been successful in generating a gene-deletion mutant in a Geobacter, so he’s well-prepared to hit the ground running.

We’re thrilled to have him on board and look forward to the exciting contributions he’ll bring to the team!

In early August, Adrienn Groza successfully completed her six-month Erasmus MSc thesis internship in my lab at SDU. Since then, she has returned to the Netherlands to begin an exciting new chapter: pursuing a PhD in environmental microbiology.

During her time in the lab, Adrienn explored the effects of bioelectrochemical stimulation on digestate communities (provided by Nature Energy) and their physiology, specifically focusing on organic carbon removal. Her work revealed that methanogenesis could be enhanced through bioelectrochemical stimulation, though the exact mechanisms remain to be fully understood. Additionally, she identified key microbial species that were promoted during these processes.

I’m incredibly proud of Adrienn and the amazing work she accomplished in such a short period of time. Well done, Adrienn! 🎉

Special thanks also go to Ghazaleh Gharib and Satoshi Kawaichi for their excellent lab mentorship.

Photo credit: Amelia-Elena Rotaru

Karina and Satoshi sampled sediments from Greenland. We are interested in discovering what happens when the Arctic melts, giving way to glacier melt debris flowing in coastal waters and carrying minerals that may influence greenhouse gas emissions.

Since this is unexplored, we hope to bring firsthand knowledge about what may be affecting methane emissions and the microbial communities involved in methane cycling in the melting Arctic. This could tell us more about the complex dynamics driving our changing climate.

This expedition has been made possible thanks to the generous financial support from the European Research Council (ERC) and wonderful colleagues (like Karl Attard at SDU) and collaborators (like Lorenz Meire, and the dedicated team from the Greenland Climate Research Center in Nuuk).

Stay tuned for updates and exciting research discoveries! 🚀🔬

Photo credit: Satoshi Kawaichi

Amelia gave an invited talk about “Life of Geobacter as a syntroph in artificial and environmental consortia with methanogens” at the International Symposium on Bioelectrochemistry and Bioenergetics of the Bioelectrochemical Society at Alcalá University. The talk was in a session celebrating the 30^th anniversary since the isolation of Geobacter sulfurreducens.

Photo credit: Amelia-Elena Rotaru