SoS RARE poster at Microbiology Society meeting
On the 9th and 10th November part of the BGS team (Megan Barnett and Simon Gregory) presented a poster on their recent work at the Microbiology Society's meeting on Industrial applications of metal-microbe interactions. The poster described some preliminary work we had been doing including work from an MSc student (Ashley Reinhardt, supervised by Steve Banwart). The poster described how we have been developing a rapid way of screening and testing microbial isolates from ion adsorption clays to identify those that might be useful for biomining. A variety of methods for growing different organisms, and testing them for useful properties such as ability to produce organic acids or chemicals than bind metals have been tested and basic bioleaching experiments have been set up. The poster attracted much attention and there were a lot of useful conversations had that has given us new ideas.
The conference itself brought together a mix of both academia and industry speakers and gave a range of talks on different aspects of biological interactions with metals from biomining, biorecovery and bioprocessing to bioremediation and biofabrication. It was particularly interesting to see representatives of two other SoS Minerals projects (COG3 and TeaSe) presenting work relevant to their projects. It was a fascinating conference, and as always, the opportunity to escape the British Geological Survey for a couple of days to talk to some biologists was always refreshing!
Simon Gregory 26 November 2015
