Environmental Microbiology

Graduate students have opportunities to pursue research relating to the microbial degradation of toxins and pollutants such as aromatic hydrocarbons, halogenated compounds and heavy metals in the Biotechnology Center for Agriculture and the Environment, the Department of Biochemistry & Microbiology, and the Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences.

Research in these areas involve studies into:

• The biochemical mechanisms used to degrade environmental toxins.
• The genetic regulation of microbial degradation pathways.
• Ientifying new genes for microbial degradation.
• The d evelopment of new techniques for the genetic analysis of bacteria.
• The development of new tools for rapidly cloning and identifying genes that are involved in catabolic transformations.