Jim Spain, Ph.D. Professor Civil and Environmental Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology

Jim Spain received a PhD in microbiology from The University of Texas at Austin.  He worked for five years at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Marine Environmental Research Laboratory before joining the Air Force Research Laboratory in 1985.  He is currently a professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. For the past 30 years he has studied the mechanisms of biodegradation of synthetic organic compounds. He is a former editor for Applied and Environmental Microbiology and has published extensively on the biodegradation of synthetic organic compounds.

Presentation Description
Biological Reduction and Oxidation of Contaminants
Increases in understanding from laboratory experiments have enabled the strategy of bioremediation to be extended to a wide range of novel compounds and novel situations. Many of the processes have now been validated in the field. Oxidation and reduction are the key processes used by microorganisms for the degradation and transformation of pollutants. Metals and organic compounds ultimately serve as electron donors or acceptors for energy production by microorganisms. Natural attenuation, bioaugmentation and biostimulation all rely on oxidation and reduction reactions. Decisions about implementation rely heavily on quantitative assessment of in situ processes. It is particularly important for the practitioner to be able to distinguish between biotic and abiotic processes. Recent advances in isotope fractionation and molecular tools are being harnessed for process monitoring in the lab and in the field.