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Why Microbes?
DOE Microbial Genome Program Report
Imagine! A future in which we can
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use "super bugs" to detect chemical contamination in
soil, air, and water and clean up oil spills and
chemicals in landfills;
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cook and heat with natural gas collected from a
backyard septic tank or bottled at a local
waste-treatment facility;
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obtain affordable alcohol-based fuels and solvents
from cornstalks, wood chips, and other plant
by-products; and
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produce new classes of antibiotics and process food
and chemicals more efficiently.
These scenarios represent only a few of the possible
ways that microbes—the invisible bacteria, archaea,
protozoa, and fungi that inhabit our environment, our
bodies, our food and water, and even the air we
breathe—can be harnessed to serve humankind.
Technological advances developed over the last decade,
particularly in genetic research conducted as part of the
international Human Genome Project, are enabling
researchers to learn about microbes at their most
fundamental level and to begin to ask questions about how
the basic parts work together to form a functioning
organism. The answers may challenge accepted scientific
thought and offer beneficial applications in areas
important to DOE's Biological and Environmental Research
(BER) program, among them bioremediation, global climate
change, biotechnology, and energy production.
Why Microbes?
By some estimates, microbes make up about 60% of the
Earth's biomass, yet less than 1% of microbial species
have been identified. Microbes play a critical role in
natural biogeochemical cycles. Because most do not
cause disease in humans, animals, or plants and are
difficult to culture, they have received little
attention. Microbes have been found surviving and
thriving in an amazing diversity of habitats, in
extremes of heat, cold, radiation, pressure, salinity,
and acidity, often where no other life forms could
exist. Identifying and harnessing their unique
capabilities, which have evolved over 3.8 billion
years, will offer us new solutions to longstanding
challenges in environmental and waste cleanup, energy
production and use, medicine, industrial processes,
agriculture, and other areas. Scientists also are
starting to appreciate the role played by microbes in
global climate processes, and we can expect insights
about both the biological underpinnings of climate
change and the contributions of microbes to Earth's
biosphere. Their capabilities soon will be added to the
list of traditional commercial uses for microbes in the
brewing, baking, dairy, and other industries.
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