Paola Palacios is now a freshly minted Ph.D., and my 1st graduate student getting a doctorate. She did a great job at her defense in front of a large audience, and a committee formed by Prof. Ronnie Glud (SDU, DK), Assistant Professor Jo Philips (AU, DK) and Senior Scientist Florin Musat (UFZ, DE). Congratulations Dr. Paola! Paola is continuing as
Mon’s first 1st author paper just got accepted in a special Frontiers topic: “Biological Methanation or (Bio/Syn)-Gas Upgrading” by Frontiers in Energy Research. We are really to see this paper soon in print. The paper is the first test of electroactivity in Methanosarcina species. Yee, M. O., Snoeyenbos-West, O. L., Thamdrup, B., Ottosen, L. D., & Rotaru, A. E. (2019). Extracellular
Paola’s second preprint is about an urban lake methanogenic community corroding iron. Jaramillo, P. A. P., & Rotaru, A. E. (2019). Lifeless Clostridia stimulate methanogenesis on Fe0 in an urban lake corrosive community. bioRxiv, 556704 We observed that dead Clostridium stimulate the growth of methanogens, however not as previously assumed via acetate-transfer. CO2-reductive methanogens were stimulated by the Clostridium [FeFe]-hydrogenases (abundant in their genomes)
On the 28th of February, Paola submitted her Ph.D. thesis, which includes 6 manuscripts (3 already submitted). Very curious to hear what the committee thinks about Paola’s work. Wishing her best of luck, it’s been fantastic working together. Hope we will continue working together for a bit longer after her defense. Picture link: https://www.swri.org/industries/corrosion-science-process-engineering
Jo, now an Assistant Prof. at Aarhus University visited us on the 10th of January. Jo presented her recent work on corrosion by acetogenic bacteria. It was great to see Jo again and discuss possible future collaborations.