Mar 30, 2021
Even the smallest microbes work in cooperation. Researchers like
Daniel Machado are recognizing the
importance of microbes in the environment and combining the
best of each for eco-friendly final products. He uses his
computational biology skills to model possible microbial
combinations for industrial and medical use.
Listen and learn
- How the fermentation industry, traditionally using single organism models, is recognizing the importance of microbial diversity,
- How the role of microbes in ecosystems models the benefits of job sharing in heterogeneous cultures, and
- What the implications of this research means for better biofuels, medicines, and ecofriendly processes.
Daniel Machado is an associate professor of Computational Biology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Unlike most computational biologists, his interest started with computers and grew to include biology. He likes to think of the "cell as a complex computer and the DNA or the genome as a piece of software." While his PhD work focused on single organisms like yeast, his current work looks at microbial ecology and diversity. His research more specifically looks at ways to optimize traits of these microorganisms.
For example, he and his colleagues have found that a "synthetic
consortium" of bacteria can run a fermentation process more
efficiently than the traditional single organism. The consortium
provides a beneficial division of labor with different bacteria
doing different jobs. Furthermore, biologists can engineer the
consortiums to get the best of each metabolic process, or use the
best of the "competitive and comparative" strains. Often more
efficient processes result with mixed species rather than a single
species.
He is studying a better use of substrates as well, such as a more
sustainable substrate like lignocellulosic waste rather than sugar.
Finally, he describes new research along these lines with plants
and how this work will produce better biofuels, industrial
products, and medicines. Listen in for more spectacular uses of
microbial diversity.
Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/30PvU9C