Microbial Physiology

“Strict anaerobes are key to the natural geochemical cycles of carbon, nitrogen and sulphur. Exploiting the processes catalysed by these anaerobes, for example in waste-water treatment and biofuel production, is our main research driver.”

The Microbial Physiology group studies the physiology of the anaerobic microorganisms and anaerobic microbial communities that play an important role in environmental biotechnological processes, such as wastewater treatment, soil remediation, production of chemicals and biofuels and recovery of metals. The main research lines are: 1) metabolic interactions between anaerobic bacteria and archaea; 2) microbial conversion of small molecules; 3) respiration with alternative electron acceptors and 4) isolation, characterisation and application of novel anaerobes. In-depth insight into the metabolic pathways is obtained by applying proteome and transcriptome analyses.