We have a pretty good understanding of how many mammals are out there; how many plant species.
We are not so sure about the insects, right? There are many insects we haven't really described yet.
So there are a few more that will be discovered. Now with the microbial world it's very different.
We honestly know probably less than 1% of all the microbes out there. Less than 1% is, you know, characterized and you know what they do.
But the vast majority, we may know that they exist but we don't know what their function is.
So we are interested in novel microbes that have novel enzymes and novel genes, novel pathways for the betterment of the environment and human health.
There's a lot of undiscovered potential for engineering applications, for medical applications, for new antibiotics, for new pathways that degrade environmental pollutants, for energy generation.
There's a lot of potential out there in the microbial world and we have just scratched the surface.
And now we have new tools that allow us to study this unexplored diversity and functionality in much, much more detail.
And that's one of the reasons why UT is such an attractive place to do science in this area;
Because there's a very strong base here for doing fundamental research in different departments;
and the proximity to Oak Ridge'Oak Ridge National Laboratory where a lot of people are pursuing these goals and they have a lot of support.
So it's a very, very exciting time to really do microbiology using the new tools.
And there's very'there are many great opportunities to really make new important discoveries.