Persistence Science

Webinar - Zoom link will be provided

Biodegradation of chemicals in the environment and in laboratory tests is mostly a result of microbial activity. Despite the microbial community being the cornerstone of biodegradation testing, there is very limited knowledge of bacterial diversity and community dynamics in laboratory tests and in the environment. Standardized laboratory tests for determining persistence are known to frequently have false negatives, meaning a chemical that would normally biodegrade in the environment fails to do so in the laboratory. Several studies have been done on improving the reliability and reproducibility of biodegradation testing by trying to increase the diversity and abundance of bacteria the microbial inoculum. However, sometimes the variability of biodegradation results in the laboratory is also a reflection of the variability of microbial communities in different environments and their ability to degrade the chemicals.

The aim of this webinar is to give an introduction to the topic of bacterial diversity and dynamics including growth kinetics during biodegradation testing, present and discuss tools for analysing bacteria, and discuss what would be best practices for documenting the bacterial inoculum in a biodegradation test.

Discussion panel:
Russel Davenport (Newcastle University)
Joeselle Serrana (Stockholm University)
Yaochun Yu (EAWAG)
Trent Key (ExxonMobil Biomedical Sciences, Inc.) 
Moderators:
Aina C Wennberg (NIVA)
Gabriel Sigmund (Wageningen University)

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