OUR RESEARCH

Molecular Biological Tools (MBTs) for Environmental Monitoring

The Löffler Lab contributes to the identification of process- and organism-specific biomarkers, which allow the design of gene-, transcript-, and protein-centric quantitative tools useful for environmental monitoring regimes. For example, the enumeration of a reductive dehalogenase gene, transcript and/or protein in environmental samples can serve diagnostic and prognostic purposes. A recent development is a high-throughput qPCR array plate, which analyzes 112 reductive dechlorination biomarkers genes in a highly parallel format.

In collaboration with Dr. Shawn Campagna’s group (https://chem.utk.edu/people/shawn-r-campagna/), we are using high-end liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) instruments and are developing untargeted metabolomics to interrogate microbial communities sampled from their natural habitats.

The integrated application of a suite of advanced MBTs in environmental monitoring regimes generates predictive understanding of relevant microbial activities related to greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient cycling, and bioremediation. At remediation sites, MBTs inform about the microbiology controlling contaminant fate, which can substantially increase the efficiency of bioremediation applications, reduce remediation time frames, and realize substantial cost-savings.