August 6, 2003 News Brief
Natural and Accelerated Bioremediation Research (NABIR) Highlighted in the San Francisco Chronicle
The July 14 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle featured an article in the
Science section devoted to bioremediation research funded by the Office of Science
NABIR program. "Mining bacteria's appetite for toxic waste--Researchers try
to clean nuclear sites with microbes," was authored by well-known science writer,
David Perlman. The article noted that scientists are exploiting the "unusual
appetites" of some microbes as a way to clean up nuclear sites. Dr. Craig Criddle,
an environmental engineer at Stanford University, is working with microorganisms
that can convert soluble uranium into an insoluble form. Criddle's work includes
research at the NABIR Field Research Center at the Oak Ridge Reservation. In
collaboration with ORNL scientists, he is identifying and controlling environmental
factors that might inhibit or enhance the process of uranium precipitation.
Criddle hopes that "after bacteria consume radioactive waste, the uranium can
be separated from water like sand, and gathered like a common mineral." The
article also describes NABIR funded research by Dr. Derek Lovley of the University
of Massachusetts at Amherst. Lovley is currently performing a field experiment
at a Uranium Mill Tailing Remedial Action (UMTRA) site in Rifle, CO. The goal
of the experiment is to enhance the growth of naturally-occurring microbes called
Geobacter to bioremediate uranium-polluted ground water at the site. The article
noted that genomes of several species of Geobacter have been sequenced by The
Institute for Genomic Research and the DOE Joint Genome Institute. The genome
sequencing was funded by the DOE Microbial Genome and Genomes to Life Programs.
