Chris Greening | |
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Born | |
Occupation(s) | Biochemist, microbiologist, and academic |
Awards | Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellowship, Australian Research Council (ARC) Emerging Leader 2 (EL2) Fellowship, National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Fellow (FASM), Australian Society for Microbiology Fenner Medal, Australian Academy of Science Life Scientist of the Year, Prime Minister's Prizes for Science |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | University of Oxford University of Otago |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Monash University |
Website | http://www.greeninglab.com |
Chris Greening is a biochemist,microbiologist,and academic. He is a Professor of Microbiology and leads the One Health Microbiology group and Global Change Research Program [1] of the Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash University in Melbourne,Australia. [2] He is most known for his work on the basis,role,and significance of the microbial metabolism of trace gases such as hydrogen,methane,carbon monoxide,and carbon dioxide. [3] [4] He has held prestigious fellowships from the CSIRO (2014-2016),Australian Research Council (2017-2019),and National Health and Medical Research Council (2020-2024) [5] and was awarded the Fenner Medal 2022 from the Australian Academy of Science. [6] Greening was awarded the Prime Minister's Prize for Life Scientist of the Year in 2023. [7]
Greening was born in a working-class family,and grew up in Wallasey,Clevedon,and Nailsea. He completed his secondary education at Nailsea School and received scholarships to attend St. Catherine’s College,University of Oxford. He graduated with a degree in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry in 2010. [8] After emigrating to New Zealand,he earned his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Otago in 2014. [9] His dissertation,"Physiological roles of the three [NiFe]-hydrogenases in Mycobacterium smegmatis",was primarily supervised by Gregory Cook and was formally recognized as "exceptional". [10] [11]
After receiving his doctorate,Greening gained postdoctoral and lecturing experience with short-term positions at the University of Otago,CSIRO,and Australian National University. In 2016,he established his research group at Monash University’s School of Biological Sciences and completed an environmentally-focused ARC DECRA Fellowship. [5] After being awarded a medically-focused NHMRC EL2 Fellowship, [12] he became an Associate Professor at Monash University’s Department of Microbiology in 2020 and was promoted to full Professor in 2022. [2] [13] He is the Environmental Microbiology advisor for the Australian Society for Microbiology, [14] and serves as an editor for the journals mSystems [15] and Microbial Genomics. [16]
Greening has studied the use of microbiology to address global challenges,including climate change,infectious disease,and food and water security. His group and collaborators integrate the fields of microbial biochemistry,physiology,genetics,ecology,biogeochemistry,and biotechnology. This depends on using techniques such as metagenomics,gas chromatography,cryo-electron microscopy,and CRISPR interference. [17]
Greening co-discovered that atmospheric trace gases are major energy sources for microorganisms. [18] He provided the first genetic proof that microorganisms mediate the major biogeochemical process of atmospheric hydrogen oxidation. Through microbial genetics and biochemistry,he identified the unique hydrogenase enzymes that mediate this process, [19] [20] demonstrated that they are important for long-term survival of dormant bacteria, [21] and resolved their structure and mechanism at atomic detail. [22] At the ecosystem scale,he has demonstrated that atmospheric trace gas oxidation is mediated by multiple bacterial and archaeal phyla, [23] and helps sustain biodiversity and productivity of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. [18] Notably,his team have revealed that some extreme environments such as Antarctic desert soils are driven primarily by atmospheric energy sources, [24] rather than photosynthesis. His work has also confirmed the basis and role of atmospheric carbon monoxide oxidation. [25]
Greening has also worked on methane emissions. He has revealed complex metabolic interactions between bacteria and archaea control methane emissions from a range of systems,including soils, [26] oceans, [27] livestock, [28] geothermal springs,hydrocarbon seeps, [29] tree stems, [30] and termite mounds. [31] Through this work,he has also identified novel methanotrophic bacteria that consume methane at elevated or atmospheric concentrations,including “Candidatus Methylotropicum kingii”from the phylum Gemmatimonadota.
Greening is also a chief investigator of several research programs,namely SAEF:Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future, [32] RISE:Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments, [33] the ARC Research Hub for Carbon Utilisation and Recycling, [34] and the Centre to Impact Antimicrobial Resistance. For the RISE program,he developed quantitative PCR cards that enable rapid and sensitive detection of multiple bacterial,viral,protist,and helminth pathogens across any given human,animal,or environmental sample. [35] [36] In the medical space,he has identified new drug targets and antimicrobial resistance mechanisms for tuberculosis,for example by resolving the biosynthesis pathway of the coenzyme F420. [37] [38]
Anaerobic respiration is respiration using electron acceptors other than molecular oxygen (O2). Although oxygen is not the final electron acceptor,the process still uses a respiratory electron transport chain.
Methanogens are microorganisms that produce methane as a metabolic byproduct in hypoxic conditions. They belong to the domain Archaea and are members of the phylum Euryarchaeota. Methanogens are common in wetlands,where they are responsible for marsh gas,and can occur in the digestive tracts of animals including ruminants and humans,where they are responsible for the methane content of belching and flatulence. In marine sediments,the biological production of methane,termed methanogenesis,is generally confined to where sulfates are depleted below the top layers and methanogens play an indispensable role in anaerobic wastewater treatments. Other methanogens are extremophiles,found in environments such as hot springs and submarine hydrothermal vents as well as in the "solid" rock of Earth's crust,kilometers below the surface.
Methanogenesis or biomethanation is the formation of methane coupled to energy conservation by microbes known as methanogens. Organisms capable of producing methane for energy conservation have been identified only from the domain Archaea,a group phylogenetically distinct from both eukaryotes and bacteria,although many live in close association with anaerobic bacteria. The production of methane is an important and widespread form of microbial metabolism. In anoxic environments,it is the final step in the decomposition of biomass. Methanogenesis is responsible for significant amounts of natural gas accumulations,the remainder being thermogenic.
Microbial ecology is the ecology of microorganisms:their relationship with one another and with their environment. It concerns the three major domains of life—Eukaryota,Archaea,and Bacteria—as well as viruses.
Methanotrophs are prokaryotes that metabolize methane as their source of carbon and chemical energy. They are bacteria or archaea,can grow aerobically or anaerobically,and require single-carbon compounds to survive.
Aeroplankton are tiny lifeforms that float and drift in the air,carried by wind. Most of the living things that make up aeroplankton are very small to microscopic in size,and many can be difficult to identify because of their tiny size. Scientists collect them for study in traps and sweep nets from aircraft,kites or balloons. The study of the dispersion of these particles is called aerobiology.
A hydrogenase is an enzyme that catalyses the reversible oxidation of molecular hydrogen (H2),as shown below:
The hydrogen cycle consists of hydrogen exchanges between biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) sources and sinks of hydrogen-containing compounds.
Biohydrogen is H2 that is produced biologically. Interest is high in this technology because H2 is a clean fuel and can be readily produced from certain kinds of biomass,including biological waste. Furthermore some photosynthetic microorganisms are capable to produce H2 directly from water splitting using light as energy source.
Hydrogen-oxidizing bacteria are a group of facultative autotrophs that can use hydrogen as an electron donor. They can be divided into aerobes and anaerobes. The former use hydrogen as an electron donor and oxygen as an acceptor while the latter use sulphate or nitrogen dioxide as electron acceptors. Species of both types have been isolated from a variety of environments,including fresh waters,sediments,soils,activated sludge,hot springs,hydrothermal vents and percolating water.
Coenzyme F420 is a family of coenzymes involved in redox reactions in a number of bacteria and archaea. It is derived from coenzyme FO (7,8-didemethyl-8-hydroxy-5-deazariboflavin) and differs by having a oligoglutamyl tail attached via a 2-phospho-L-lactate bridge. F420 is so named because it is a flavin derivative with an absorption maximum at 420 nm.
The class Zetaproteobacteria is the sixth and most recently described class of the Pseudomonadota. Zetaproteobacteria can also refer to the group of organisms assigned to this class. The Zetaproteobacteria were originally represented by a single described species,Mariprofundus ferrooxydans,which is an iron-oxidizing neutrophilic chemolithoautotroph originally isolated from Kamaʻehuakanaloa Seamount in 1996 (post-eruption). Molecular cloning techniques focusing on the small subunit ribosomal RNA gene have also been used to identify a more diverse majority of the Zetaproteobacteria that have as yet been unculturable.
Methanococcus maripaludis is a species of methanogenic archaea found in marine environments,predominantly salt marshes. M. maripaludis is a weakly motile,non-spore-forming,Gram-negative,strict anaerobic mesophile with a pleomorphic coccoid-rod shape,averaging 1.2 by 1.6 μm is size. The genome of M. maripaludis has been sequenced,and over 1,700 protein-coding genes have been identified. In ideal conditions,M. maripaludis grows quickly and can double every two hours.
Methylobacter tundripaludum is a methane-oxidizing bacterium. It is Gram-negative,rod-shaped,non-motile,non-spore forming,with type strain SV96T. Its genome has been sequenced.
A microbiome is the community of microorganisms that can usually be found living together in any given habitat. It was defined more precisely in 1988 by Whipps et al. as "a characteristic microbial community occupying a reasonably well-defined habitat which has distinct physio-chemical properties. The term thus not only refers to the microorganisms involved but also encompasses their theatre of activity". In 2020,an international panel of experts published the outcome of their discussions on the definition of the microbiome. They proposed a definition of the microbiome based on a revival of the "compact,clear,and comprehensive description of the term" as originally provided by Whipps et al.,but supplemented with two explanatory paragraphs. The first explanatory paragraph pronounces the dynamic character of the microbiome,and the second explanatory paragraph clearly separates the term microbiota from the term microbiome.
Interspecies hydrogen transfer (IHT) is a form of interspecies electron transfer. It is a syntrophic process by which H2 is transferred from one organism to another,particularly in the rumen and other anaerobic environments.
Cable bacteria are filamentous bacteria that conduct electricity across distances over 1 cm in sediment and groundwater aquifers. Cable bacteria allow for long-distance electron transport,which connects electron donors to electron acceptors,connecting previously separated oxidation and reduction reactions. Cable bacteria couple the reduction of oxygen or nitrate at the sediment's surface to the oxidation of sulfide in the deeper,anoxic,sediment layers.
Atribacterota is a phylum of bacteria,which are common in anoxic sediments rich in methane. They are distributed worldwide and in some cases abundant in anaerobic marine sediments,geothermal springs,and oil deposits. Genetic analyzes suggest a heterotrophic metabolism that gives rise to fermentation products such as acetate,ethanol,and CO2. These products in turn can support methanogens within the sediment microbial community and explain the frequent occurrence of Atribacterota in methane-rich anoxic sediments. According to phylogenetic analysis,Atribacterota appears to be related to several thermophilic phyla within Terrabacteria or may be in the base of Gracilicutes. According to research,Atribacterota shows patterns of gene expressions which consists of fermentative,acetogenic metabolism. These expressions let Atribacterota to be able to create catabolic and anabolic functions which are necessary to generate cellular reproduction,even when the energy levels are limited due to the depletion of dissolved oxygen in the areas of sea waters,fresh waters,or ground waters.
Electric bacteria are forms of bacteria that directly consume and excrete electrons at different energy potentials without requiring the metabolization of any sugars or other nutrients. This form of life appears to be especially adapted to low-oxygen environments. Most life forms require an oxygen environment in which to release the excess of electrons which are produced in metabolizing sugars. In a low oxygen environment,this pathway for releasing electrons is not available. Instead,electric bacteria "breathe" metals instead of oxygen,which effectively results in both an intake of and excretion of electrical charges.
The holobiont concept is a renewed paradigm in biology that can help to describe and understand complex systems,like the host-microbe interactions that play crucial roles in marine ecosystems. However,there is still little understanding of the mechanisms that govern these relationships,the evolutionary processes that shape them and their ecological consequences. The holobiont concept posits that a host and its associated microbiota with which it interacts,form a holobiont,and have to be studied together as a coherent biological and functional unit to understand its biology,ecology,and evolution.
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