Spinoza Premium for microbiologist Mike Jetten (BT/EBT)
05 June 2012 by M&C
Prof. Mike Jetten, microbiologist at Radboud University Nijmegen and Delft University of Technology, has won a NWO Spinoza Premium (from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). This highest scientific award in the Netherlands is awarded annually to a maximum of four researchers. The winners of the Spinoza Prize are among the very best scientists in their fields, nationally and internationally. The award of €2.5 million is intended to fund additional research.
Mike Jetten: important work on micro-organisms
Microbiologist Mike Jetten was awarded the NWO Spinoza Premium 2012 for his work on extraordinary microbes, which he discovered in unusual biotopes. He specialises in slow-growing, anaerobic bacteria.
Unravelling secrets
Jetten – professor of Ecological Microbiology at Radboud University Nijmegen and professor by special appointment of Environmental Microbiology at Delft University of Technology – was one of the first to entice these bacteria to grow and reveal their secrets down to most detailed genetic and molecular level. And that resulted in some surprising discoveries. For example, he found that anammox bacteria have a compartmentalised cell architecture, which is very unusual for micro-organisms. Moreover, these bacteria generate the explosive compound hydrazine – which is also used as a rocket fuel – for their own metabolism. The ‘Twente canal bacterium’ (Candidatus Methylomirabilis oxyfera) which can oxidise methane aerobically (‘like lighting a gas flame underwater’) lives in oxygen-free conditions, but makes oxygen itself (oxygenic). It was previously unknown that bacteria could do this.
Innovation
Besides his enthusiasm for fundamental research, Jetten is also interested in useful, innovative applications. By using ‘his’ micro-organisms, wastewater treatment can generate a net profit. For example, since 2002 the deployment of the anammox bacterium has resulted in major energy savings at a wastewater treatment facility in Rotterdam and recently at 15 major facilities in China.
In the near future, the 'Twente canal bacterium' can also go to work in wastewater, and flue gas purifiers will be working more effectively with a 'sulphur-eating' bacterium, which was discovered by Jetten's co-workers in hot, acidic volcanic mud near Naples...
Opposition
Jetten is a remarkably enthusiastic and determined researcher. Recently, he encountered disbelief and even outright opposition to his hypothesis that certain bacteria can convert ammonium into nitrogen gas without oxygen. ‘Researchers have looked for such bacteria in vain for 50 years. So people thought they didn't exist,’ he explains. This challenged him and his researchers to come up with increasingly specific evidence about how the anammox bacterium works and where it lives (in fact, everywhere were there is little oxygen. In the meantime it has become clear that 50 per cent of the nitrogen gas in the atmosphere originated from anammox, and the scientific community was convinced.
Jetten plans to use the Spinoza Prize to search for other new bacteria with unknown 'eating habits', at exotic locations such as the deep ocean or volcanoes, or perhaps simply in a Dutch polder. ‘I know that they exist,’ Jetten contends.
More information
Prof. M.S.M. (Mike) Jetten, m.jetten@remove-this.science.ru.nl , +31 24 3652940
Science Information Officer TU Delft Roy Meiejr, r.e.t.meijer@tudelft.nl, +31 15 2781751
