The Haygood group has two main areas of interest. These areas may not seem related, at first, but both revolve around the amazing versatility of microbes as chemists, and their often-unrecognized ecological impact on marine environments. The two topics are bioactive metabolite symbiosis, and iron acquisition by marine microbes.
|
Bioactive metabolite symbiosis: Symbiosis means different organisms living together; often this relationship allows the symbiotic system to be more successful than the partners would be individually. Familiar examples of microbial symbioses with larger creatures include animals that host photosynthetic microbes to make their food for them, such as corals. Very recently, we and others have begun to realize that symbiosis based, not on ordinary metabolism, such as photosynthesis, but biosynthesis of complex and unusual molecules, is an equally important phenomenon. The molecules microbes make for their hosts can defend them against enemies and disease, and many have potential as drugs to treat human ailments.
|
|
Iron acquisition by marine microbes: Long ago in the ancient world, before cyanobacteria evolved oxygenic photosynthesisand poisoned the world withoxygen, iron was plentiful in the oceans, where life was evolving. Because iron was abundant and is a versatile catalyst for biological reactions, life evolved many enzymes that contain iron. When oxygen levels rose, ironprecipitated as rust, and organisms that live in aerobic environments have been struggling to getenough iron for the last billion years. Marine microbes have a particularly difficult task since seawater has the lowest iron levels of any habitat on earth; lack of iron limits productivity in vast areas of the ocean. Scientists are beginning to believe that the molecules marine microbes make to bind iron have permeated the entire ocean, and these molecules are the only reason that enough iron remains dissolved to support photosynthesis by marine phytoplankton, a process that accounts for a major fraction of the planet’s capacity for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. |
|
Mailing Address: Phone Contact: |
