Ellingson is one of no more than ten graduate students worldwide who received the award this year. It is given in recognition of the quality and significance of her research in integrating supercomputing technologies with biopharmaceutical research.

Ellingson has been successful in developing efficient programs for screening chemicals for their potential to interact with proteins.  Due to the her program’s association with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, she is able to use the Kraken, Jaguar, and Titan supercomputers to bridge supercomputing and biological research with particular importance in drug discovery and chemical/system biology.

The award comes with a travel fellowship to the national American Chemical Society meeting in Indianapolis this fall, a recognition ceremony during the meeting, and a free license of a well-known industrial computational chemistry program.

Ellingson’s work is performed in the UT/ORNL Center for Molecular Biophysics, under the supervision of Jerome Baudry, assistant professor in the Biochemistry and Molecular and Cellular Biology department , and Genome Science and Technology faculty in collaboration with Jeremy Smith, UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair for Molecular Biophysics. Her research is funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy.

Ellingson has also recently won the 2013 Science Alliance award and, among many travel fellowships, the Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing and Supercomputing Broader Engagement awards several years in a row. She has also co-authored many peer-reviewed publications with her advisor and collaborators.

The award is sponsored by the society’s Computers in Chemistry division in association with the Canadian scientific software company Chemical Computing Group. For more information, visit the ACS website.

Babu will serve as Governor’s Chair for Advanced Manufacturing. He begins on July 1.

Babu, a professor in the Welding Engineering Program in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at The Ohio State University, directed a National Science Foundation Industry and University Cooperative Research center focused on materials joining for energy applications. He joined The Ohio State University faculty in 2007 following several years at the Edison Welding Institute in Columbus, Ohio. Babu has also served in multiple roles at ORNL, including as a post doctoral scholar, research professor, and member of both the research and development staff and the senior research and development staff.

Babu’s research helps widen the scope of advanced manufacturing and additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, which is the process of adding successive layers to make a three-dimensional solid object from a digital model.

“Dr. Babu’s vast experience and expertise in materials science pushes our research into a new forefront,” said Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek. “Through the innovation of materials and their integration into product design, his research has the power to fundamentally change the products we use and how they are made.”

Babu will be a professor based in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering and have a joint professorship with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. As a Governor’s Chair, he also will have an appointment in the Energy and Environmental Sciences Directorate and in the Energy Material Program at ORNL.

Babu’s research addresses fundamental challenges in bringing additive and other advanced manufacturing concepts into broader production use. Through analysis of materials performance at the atomic scale, he translates this information into models for the aerospace and automotive industries to use on high-performance computers.

“In ten to twenty years, we hope that we will stop worrying about how to manufacture products and instead worry about what to manufacture,” said Babu. “The design of products will become the most important thing.”

As Governor’s Chair, Babu will lead efforts to integrate the advanced manufacturing research and design activities between UT, ORNL, and industry. In collaboration with industry, faculty, students, and researchers at ORNL’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, he will conduct basic and applied research focusing on hybrid composite products, energy-efficient design and development, and understanding a product’s life cycle and the implications of design on the product’s purpose.

Babu received a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the PSG College of Technology in 1986, a master’s degree in technology from the Indian Institute of Technology in 1988, and his doctorate in materials science from Cambridge University.

The UT–ORNL Governor’s Chair Program is funded by the state of Tennessee and ORNL. It is designed to attract exceptionally accomplished researchers from around the world to boost joint research efforts that position the partnership as a leader in the fields of biological science, computational science, advanced materials, and neutron science. Ten of the eleven Governor’s Chairs now have joint appointments at UT Knoxville and ORNL.

Other UT–ORNL Governor’s Chairs include:

• Jeremy Smith, a computational biologist who came to UT and ORNL from the University of Heidelberg in Germany. He was appointed in 2006.
• Howard Hall, an expert in nuclear security who came to UT and ORNL from Lawrence Livermore National Lab. He was appointed in 2009.
• Alexei Sokolov, a polymer scientist who came to UT and ORNL from the University of Akron. He was appointed in 2009.
• Yilu Liu, an electric grid researcher who came to UT and ORNL from Virginia Tech. She was appointed in 2009.
• Thomas Zawodzinski, an energy storage researcher who came to UT and ORNL from Case Western Reserve University. He was appointed in 2009.
• Frank Loeffler, a biologist and environmental engineer who came to UT and ORNL from Georgia Tech. He was appointed in 2009.
• Robert Williams, a genetics and biomedical researcher who was the Dunavant Chair in the Department of Pediatrics at UT Health Science Center. He was appointed in 2009.
• William Weber, a materials scientist who came to UT Knoxville and ORNL from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He was appointed in 2010.
• Brian Wirth, a radiation expert who came to UT and ORNL from the University of California, Berkeley. He was appointed in 2010.
• Terry Hazen, an environmental biologist who came to UT and ORNL from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He was appointed in 2011.

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C O N T A C T:

Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)

McSween is a Chancellor’s Professor and distinguished professor of earth and planetary sciences.

The SEC Professor of the Year Award honors one SEC faculty member from the fourteen conference universities whose record in research, scholarship, and service places him or her among the elite in higher education.

“We are honored that Hap won this top award in our conference,” said Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek. “It is well deserved. He is a stellar representative of our university and what it means to be an extraordinary scientist, teacher, and researcher.”

McSween first won the university’s SEC Faculty Achievement Award, making him a finalist for the top award. He will be honored at the SEC Spring Banquet in Destin, Florida, in May and will receive a $20,000 honorarium.

“Hap is beloved as a truly wonderful human being whose interactions with others are characterized by kindness and generosity,” said Theresa Lee, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “He is the epitome of a servant leader and we are indebted to him for responding to calls for his leadership and service at critical times in his department, the college, and the university. He is passionately committed to the success of this institution. We are a better community because Hap McSween is among us.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoUTUr684I8

McSween is the world’s leading expert on the composition of Mars. He is co-investigator for NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft mission, the Mars Exploration Rovers and the Dawn spacecraft mission. He is a recipient of the National Academy of Sciences’ J. Lawrence Smith Medal for his pioneering studies of the parent planets of meteorites and his work on the geological history of Mars, and he is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In 1999, McSween led a team of researchers that discovered geologic evidence on a meteorite that water existed deep in Mars’ crust. He also has an asteroid named for him by the International Astronomical Union, 5223 McSween.

A UT faculty member for thirty-five years, McSween has been named the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences best teacher six times. UT awarded him the Alexander Prize, which recognizes excellence in teaching and research, and the College of Arts and Sciences College Marshal, the highest college honor bestowed upon a faculty member.

The SEC Professor of the Year is selected by the SEC provosts. The award is part of several academic initiatives the Southeastern Conference has undertaken to encourage academic leadership and collaboration within the SEC.

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C O N T A C T :

Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)

Harry McSween (865-974-9805, mcsween@utk.edu)

The AIA COTE Top Ten Green Projects Awards is one of the profession’s best-known recognition programs for sustainable design excellence. The program honored a range of architectural types, including government projects, education buildings, office spaces, community projects, and housing.

The New Norris House is the only university project selected for the award. Along with fellow award recipients, including renowned architecture firms such as Brooks + Scarpa and KieranTimberlake, the New Norris House will be feted at the AIA 2013 National Convention and Design Exposition in Denver this June.

The house was developed by UT students in conjunction with architecture faculty members Tricia Stuth, Robert French, Samuel Mortimer, and Richard Kelso. The building is one of the first in Tennessee to earn the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Homes platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The project was led by the College of Architecture and Design in partnership with the UT Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment, the College of Engineering, and the Department of Environmental Studies. It took more than three years to complete.

The award’s jury lauded the home for its affordability and prefabrication approach—made possible through a university partnership with Clayton Homes—and its historical reference to the town of Norris, a planned community under the US New Deal program.

It is “one of the few projects that really looked at the manufacturing process holistically and how a residence could be delivered on site in a really economical way and in a way that conserved energy,” the jury wrote.

The New Norris House has received other recognitions, including a 2013 Design Build Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, a 2012 Residential Architect Merit Award for Single-Family Housing, and the 2011 Prize for Creative Integration of Practice and Education from the National Council of Architectural Registration Board. It also won the 2009 Environmental Protection Agency’s People, Prosperity and the Planet Sustainable Design Competition.

To learn more about the New Norris House, visit the website.

Visit the AIA website to learn more about the Top Ten COTE Green Projects Awards and to see other winning projects.

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CONTACTS:

Kiki Roeder (865-974-6713, kroeder@utk.edu)

Lola Alapo (865-974-3993, lalapo@utk.edu)

David Jenkins

David Jenkins, an assistant professor in chemistry; Jaan Mannik, an assistant professor in physics; and Jeff Reinbolt, an assistant professor of mechanical, aerospace, and biomedical engineering, will use the monetary awards to support their research and educational activities.

The CAREER award is the NSF’s most prestigious honor for junior faculty who demonstrate outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.

Jenkins won $650,000 over five years, beginning May 1. Jenkins’s research group will design new catalysts for forming aziridines. Aziridines are found in natural products that have antitumor and antibiotic properties, and are crucial in pharmaceutical research.

Jaan Mannik

Mannik won $635,000 over five years, beginning March 1. Mannik’s research group will be investigating how the most basic cellular functions, DNA replication and cell division, depend on the cell shape using Escherichia coli (E. coli) cells. These studies can point out new molecular targets for antibiotics, and develop micro- and nanoengineered chips that can be used in many laboratories for live cell imaging.

Reinbolt’s award includes a $417,000 grant over five years, beginning June 1. The CAREER project will allow Reinbolt and his graduate students to develop scientific tools and simulations to improve rehabilitation for stroke victims.

Jeff Reinbolt

In addition, the professors will perform outreach activities.

Jenkins’ team will work with Central High School in the Pre-Collegiate Scholar Program and the development of new teaching materials for Advanced Placement Chemistry labs.

Mannik’s team will supervise students from UT’s VolsTeach program in their research methods course, provide opportunities for high school and undergraduate students to obtain interdisciplinary research experience, and perform presentations and lab tours for UT’s Educational Advancement Program with the aim of motivating participating students to choose careers in science.

Reinbolt’s group will create an app of his findings and also be involved with the Pre-Collegiate Research Scholars along with College of Engineering outreach programs for underrepresented groups.

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C O N T A C T :

Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)

EcoCAR 2 team members in front row (left to right): Mitchell Rieger, Alex Doss, and Zach Hayden. In back row (left to right): Michael Hinricher, Jacob Wilson, and Alex Cox.

After receiving the keys to a 2013 Chevrolet Malibu less than a year ago, students on the UT EcoCAR 2 team have completely redesigned it to make it more eco-friendly. Now, their hard work will be tested against other teams across North America in the second phase matchup.

The graduate and undergraduate students on the team are competing in a three-year collegiate engineering competition called EcoCAR 2 established by the US Department of Energy and General Motors.

The media are invited to the vehicle’s send-off at 9:00 a.m. on April 29 on the top floor of the Eleventh Street Parking Garage, on the corner of 11th Street and Cumberland Avenue. Parking is available in the garage.

Reporters will be able to ride in the car, view demonstrations and interview the EcoCAR 2 team and mentors, College of Engineering Dean Wayne Davis, and William Hamel, head of the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering.

The vehicle will be shipped to the General Motors Proving Grounds in Yuma, Arizona, where it will be put through a series of tests and compared to the other schools’ modified vehicles.

During the competition’s phase two this past year, the team removed car parts such as the stock fuel tank, radiator, and engine and input its own personal vehicle design components with the goal of making the GM-donated car a better performing, more efficient hybrid than what is currently on the roadways.

“Our vehicle is improved over the original as it has better fuel economy, emits less greenhouse and other harmful gases, and is a plug-in hybrid,” John Utley, graduate student and team leader. “It can drive up to thirty-four miles on electric power. The best plug-in hybrid cars on the market can drive up to forty and those were made in a factory, not by students.”

Depending on vehicle performance in Arizona, it will then be shipped to San Diego, California, for the remainder of the phase two competition. In San Diego, the team will showcase its EcoCAR 2 program including outreach, business, and engineering.

The EcoCAR 2 competition culminates at the end of each academic year when all of the schools and their vehicles come together to compete in more than a dozen static and dynamic events. UT won sixth place in first phase of the competition. Second phase winners will be announced May 24. Winners receive cash awards.

GM provides production vehicles, vehicle components, seed money, technical mentoring, and operational support to EcoCAR 2. The DOE and one of its research and development facilities, Argonne National Laboratory, provide competition management, team evaluation, and technical and logistical support. In total, the fifteen teams have been given $745 million in direct and in-kind support.

For more information on the student engineering program, the participating schools or the competition sponsors, visit the EcoCAR 2 website.

For more information about UT’s team, visit their website.

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C O N T A C T:

Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)

Kim Cowart (865-974-0686, kcowart@utk.edu)

Photo Caption: EcoCAR 2 team members in front row (L to R): Mitchell Rieger, Alex Doss, and Zach Hayden. In back row (L to R): Michael Hinricher, Jacob Wilson, and Alex Cox.

(L to R) Dimitrios A. Kakavelakis, III (Second), Joseph Majdalani (Advisor), and Andrew Fist (First)

For the fourth year in a row, Professor Joe Majdalani’s teams at the University of Tennessee Space Institute have won best papers at the sixty-fourth American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Southeastern Regional Student Conference. The UTSI teams competed against more than 200 graduate and undergraduate students in Raleigh, North Carolina. To read more, visit the UTSI website.

Five students have received 2013 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees.

The recipients are:

• Lauren Breza, a doctoral candidate in ecology and evolutionary biology, from Tallahassee, Florida. She is exploring how sustainable land use practices influence carbon emissions within the ecosystem. Breza received her undergraduate degree in ecology and evolutionary biology from UT.

• Madelyn Crawford, a senior graduating this spring with a degree in honors biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology, from Knoxville. Crawford plans to examine the effect of microbes that live in mammals’ guts on the function of the hosts’ immune systems. She will be enrolled in the immunology and molecular pathogenesis PhD program at Emory University.

• Rachel Forvargue, a doctoral candidate in ecology and evolutionary biology, from Harrisonburg, Virginia. Her research will inform policies and strategies for natural resource management for the marine protected areas on the Great Barrier Reef system. She received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry at the College of William and Mary.

• Kelly Rooker, a doctoral candidate in mathematics, from Fredericksburg, Virginia. She is using mathematical models to discover when humans started coupling and uncover previously unseen evolution in early humans. She received her bachelor’s degree in biology and mathematics from Bridgewater College.

• Hannah Woo, a doctoral candidate in environmental engineering, from San Francisco, California. She is investigating how plant material broken down by ocean bacteria can be used to make cheaper biofuel. She received her bachelor’s degree in molecular environmental biology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Each will receive $30,000 over the next year along with a $10,500 cost-of-education allowance for tuition and fees and opportunities for international research and professional development.

Jeremy Blaschke, a graduate student in systematic biology; Brian Looney, a graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology; Kathryn Massana, a graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology; Emily Morin, a graduate student in mechanical, aerospace, and biomedical engineering; Quentin Read, a graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology; Jordan Sawyer, a graduate student in mechanical, aerospace, and biomedical engineering; and Katlyn Stiles, a graduate student in anthropology, received honorable mentions.

The NSF’s fellowship program—the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind—aims to ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States. Past fellows include numerous Nobel Prize winners, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Google founder Sergey Brin, and Freakonomics co-author Steven Levitt.

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C O N T A C T:

Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)

The paper—entitled “Base-load Electricity from Natural Gas and Nuclear Power: The Role of Federal and State Policy”—is based on a symposium held at the Baker Center in September 2012.

Sponsored by the Baker Center, Tennessee Valley Authority, America’s National Gas Alliance, and Spectra Energy Corporation, the symposium featured eighteen nationally and regionally known speakers and attracted participants from the electric utility industry, regulatory agencies, research institutions, and other nongovernmental organizations. The symposium was organized by Baker Center fellow Mary English and a team of academic, business, and government professionals. English, who is retired from UT’s Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment, has a doctorate in sociology from UT, a master’s degree in regional planning from the University of Massachusetts, and a bachelor’s degree from Brown University.

As highlighted in the white paper authored by English, natural gas and nuclear power—the two dominant alternatives to coal—have dramatically different pros and cons. These pros and cons are shaped by environmental, health, safety, and security factors as well as technological and economic factors. Many of these factors are, in turn, shaped by current and prospective federal and state policies.

A copy of the paper is available on the Baker Center website.

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C O N T A C T :

Nissa Dahlin-Brown (865-974-8681, nissa@utk.edu)

• New program will expand UT department’s focus in international human rights
• Body of Evidence: UT using donated corpses in mass grave project with international aspirations
• Military atrocities: El Salvador
• Editorial: Projects such as Body Farm pay of academically

Drumheller-Horton feeding a partial cow hind limb to a group of American alligators at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm in Florida. She was collecting bite mark samples from different species of crocodylian on cow and pig limbs.

Stephanie Drumheller-Horton, lecturer in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, helped make an interesting discovery in a dinosaur fossil earlier this year.

She will be discussing her research at the Science Forum on Friday, April 12.

While analyzing bite marks on some seventy-five million year-old dinosaur bones that were collected in southern Utah in 2002, she and a team of paleontologists found the remnant of a prehistoric crocodylian tooth—evidence that crocs may have eaten small dinosaurs.

“Crocodylian” is a term encompassing several living animals, including alligators, crocodiles, and caimans, and their closest extinct relatives.

Drumheller-Horton studies both modern and ancient crocodylians, comparing the patterns of bite marks they leave on the bones of their prey.

The Science Forum is a weekly brown-bag lunch series that allows professors and area scientists to discuss their research with the general public in a conversational presentation.

Femur with tooth.

The weekly presentations begin at noon on Fridays in Room C-D of Thompson-Boling Arena. Attendees can bring lunch or purchase it at the arena. Each presentation is forty minutes long and is followed by a question-and-answer session. Science Forum presentations are free and open to the public.

Drumheller-Horton will speak about her work with modern crocodylians and then compare her findings with several case studies of fossils like the dinosaur bones she helped analyze.

She says that comparing bite mark patterns of modern crocodylians to ancient ones allows scientists to identify “very specific behavior that can be traced back sixty or seventy million years.”

They are also able to identify specific types of crocodylian species based on the fossils and learn about what was happening in their ecosystem at the time.

Drumheller-Horton has been studying crocodylian bite marks since 2006, when she began researching them for her dissertation.

Future Science Forums will feature:

• April 19: Devon M. Burr, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences, discussing “The Moon That Would Be a Planet: Saturn’s Giant Titan”
• April 26: Joan Markel, curator of Civil War exhibits at the McClung Museum, presenting “Digging into Our Civil War Past”

The Science Forum is sponsored by the UT Office of Research. For more information about the Science Forum, visit the Office of Research website.

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C O N T A C T :

Holly Gary (865-974-2225, hgary@utk.edu)

Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, amy.blakely@tennessee.edu)

Instead of manually transferring samples, chemicals and test tubes, the system uses robotics to streamline the
process and allow large batches to be analyzed simultaneously. Photo by Brett Pate, Y-12 Photography.

Y‑12’s formal partnership with UT offers a simple solution: graduate research assistants.

“Using a graduate assistant is a phenomenal value,” said James Bradshaw of Y‑12’s Analytical Chemistry Organization. “We get a lot more done for the taxpayers’ dollar.”

Bradshaw has taken advantage of the UT/Y-12 partnership to collaborate with chemistry professor Michael Sepaniak and doctoral candidate Jennifer Charlton on a project that has potentially significant benefits for responses to nuclear crises like the disaster that occurred at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March 2011.

Through the project, Charlton has gained academic, field, laboratory, and US Department of Energy experience.

“We’re getting a lot of work from a very skilled individual,” Bradshaw said. “We can actually deliver quality results while educating the next generation of scientists—this is a no-brainer.”

The initial assessment of a nuclear event’s severity—of how much radioactive material was released, where it went, and who might be affected by it—relies on accurate and timely measurements of nearby surfaces.

Those measurements are currently done by a manual process—collect a soil sample, process it, digest it in acid, wait two hours—that works in twelve-sample batches. Then there’s the analysis time, which can take hours or days. In total, two researchers using these techniques can expect to complete roughly 100 samples in a twenty-four-hour period.

Bradshaw and Charlton hope to dramatically increase that throughput to as many as 10,000 samples a day for two operators.

“Current methods only allow for the isolation of one actinide, such as uranium, at a time,” Charlton said. “We’ve modified the chemistry to include the rest of the actinides.” Actinides, elements 89 through 103 on the Periodic Table, are the radioactive elements of interest to researchers and crisis responders. By detecting specific actinides, responders, medical personnel, and clean-up crews can act quickly and efficiently to provide relief and assistance.

“We’ve also taken the manual actinide separation process and automated it. Our system uses robotics to streamline the process and allow large batches to be analyzed simultaneously,” Charlton said.

The outcome has potential benefits for National Nuclear Security Administration researchers, other Y‑12 processes and, eventually, first responders.

-Written by Y-12′s Eric Swanson

Barber, founding director of the UT Center for the Study of Youth and Political Conflict, will share his experiences from his trips to Egypt at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 9, at the UT International House, 1623 Melrose Avenue.

The presentation, “From Rally to Revolution: Inside the Minds of Egyptian Youth Activists,” will focus on the roles of key youth based on Barber’s research in Egypt over the past two years. Barber’s presentation will include pictures, video clips from his time in Egypt, and a documentary trailer.

Barber and colleagues won a $450,000 grant from the Swiss-based Jacobs Foundation in 2011 to fund this study, which includes extensive interviews, a national survey, and the development phase of a documentary.

The UT Middle Eastern Student Association, in collaboration with the UT Issues Committee, is sponsoring the event. It is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

Tuesday’s presentation will address how the Egyptian youngsters accomplished a fast overthrow of one of the strongest governments in the Middle East, how they effectively spread the spirit of revolt across the globe, their hope for meaningful change, their disappointment with the pace and degree of change, and how accurately the media has covered the role of youths in the revolution.

Barber is a professor of child and family studies in the UT College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences and specializes in the study of cross-cultural parent-youth relations and adolescent development in the context of political conflict, with a particular focus on youth from the Gaza Strip, Palestine, and Bosnia.

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CONTACT:

Lola Alapo (865-974-3993, lola.alapo@tennessee.edu)

The bioremediation expert presented his Deepwater Horizon disaster research findings at the 245th National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society.

Hazen conducted research following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, which is estimated to have spilled 210 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. His research team used a powerful new approach for identifying microbes in the environment to discover previously unknown and naturally occurring bacteria that consume and break down crude oil.

“The Deepwater Horizon oil provided a new source of nutrients in the deepest waters,” said Hazen. “With more food present in the water, there was a population explosion among those bacteria already adapted to using oil as a food source. It was surprising how fast they consumed the oil. In some locations, it took only one day for them to reduce a gallon of oil to a half gallon. In others, the half-life for a given quantity of spilled oil was six days.”

This data suggests that a great potential for intrinsic bioremediation of oil plumes exists in the deep sea and other environs in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil-eating bacteria are natural inhabitants of the Gulf because of the constant supply of oil as food.

Hazen’s team used a novel approach for identifying previously recognized kinds of oil-eating bacteria that contributed to the natural clean up of the Deepwater Horizon spill. Instead of growing the microbes in a laboratory, the team used “ecogenomics.” This approach uses genetic and other analyses of the DNA, proteins, and other footprints of bacteria to provide a more detailed picture of microbial life in the water.

“The bottom line from this research may be that the Gulf of Mexico is more resilient and better able to recover from oil spills than anyone thought,” Hazen said. “It shows that we may not need the kinds of heroic measures proposed after the Deepwater Horizon spill, like adding nutrients to speed up the growth of bacteria that break down oil, or using genetically engineered bacteria. The Gulf has a broad base of natural bacteria, and they respond to the presence of oil by multiplying quite rapidly.”

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. For more information, visit  www.acs.org.

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C O N T A C T :

Terry Hazen (865-974-7709, tchazen@utk.edu)

Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)