REMEDIATE Work Package 3

Rapid molecular microbiology assessment approaches to assessing bioremediation 

This work package leader is the University of Copenhagen, with Queen's University Belfast, and Dublin City University also participating.

Many organisms are capable of using pollutants as metabolic substrates; in some cases this results in the removal or inactivation of harmful contamination, known as bioremediation.

Decisions on how to use bioremediation to treat polluted sites typically depend on time-consuming laboratory tests in different environmental - ultimately artificial - conditions. There is an urgent need for the development and application of better predictive and ecologically relevant molecular methods to let us see what is happening on contaminated sites.

By using a metagenomics approach in sampling, we will get a richer picture of the potential for bioremediation at a contaminated site, and we can develop more useful biomarkers for more rapid and complete site assessments.

Consideration of metal contamination and metal phytostabilisation alongside bioremediation of other pollutants using metagenomics, chemical, and stable isotope incorporation techniques is proposed, along with the use of geochemical characterisation.

Early Stage Researchers working in this work package are: