Download Gordon Chua: Biographical Abstract

Peter Dunfield
Biographical Abstract
Peter Dunfield came to the University of Calgary in 2008. He was previously employed as a Senior
Scientist by the Institute of Geological Science in New Zealand (GNS Science), where he developed an
extremophile microbiology program to study bacteria that live in volcanic environments. This work
produced a collection of over 1000 bacterial isolates that is, to date, the basis for two patents. The
research also produced a 2007 publication in Nature, the world’s highest-profile general science
journal, along with associated stories in national and international news media. Previously, from 20002005, he held an appointment as a Research Group Leader in Germany’s leading scientific network,
the Max-Planck-Society. There he studied the role that certain bacteria play in mitigating methane
emissions from peat bogs, rice paddies, and forest soils.
Professor Dunfield has received grants from the Royal Society of New Zealand, the German National
Research Council, and NSERC, among others. He also leads a genome sequencing project funded via
the US Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute. This project examines the evolution and
ecology of bacteria that consume methane, with the ultimate goal of understanding how to use these
bacteria to minimize methane emissions from natural and anthropogenic systems. He has given invited
lectures at diverse symposia such as the Gordon Research Conference on the Molecular Basis of
Microbial C1 Metabolism, the Canadian Society of Microbiologists Conference, the New Zealand
Microbiological Society Meeting, and the public interest group Nature Calgary. He has published over
30 papers in international journals.
Research Abstract
“Green Energy and the Uncultured Microbial Majority”
Microbial ecologists estimate that there may be a billion species of bacteria on Erath. However, less
than 0.1% of these are available from culture collections. The vast majority of microbes has never been
grown in a laboratory, and is known to exist only because their genetic signatures can be detected in
the environment. They are a vast potential reservoir of biotechnologically useful molecules and
processes. The research goal of the Dunfield group is to characterize some of the vast unknown
biodiversity. They hope to understanding what these uncultured bacteria are doing in the environment,
whether they have unknown genetic capabilities, and whether they can be employed in environmentally
or economically useful ways. For this they use molecular DNA-based methods and improved isolation
protocols to discover new species, which are then described physiologically and via full genome
sequencing. Infrastructural support for this approach has been provided by the Alberta Ministry of
Advanced Education and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation.
This research program particularly targets bacteria with applications to energy and climate issues, such
as the reduction of methane emissions and the production of sustainable biofuels. For example, they
are studying soil bacteria that eat methane (CH4) and therefore counteract the global warming effect of
this gas. They are also looking for bugs that may be used in production technologies for secondgeneration biofuels, including thermophilic cellulolytic bacteria and bacteria that convert syngas (CO)
into higher-value bioalcohols. A particular focus of this research is extreme environments with very high
temperatures and acidities. The extremophilic bacteria that thrive in these habitats possess stresstolerant enzymes that have special biotechnological promise.