People

I am a Professor of Environmental Microbiology at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Ocean University of China, Head of Molecular Microbiology at UEA, and co-director of the Norwich Research Park (NRP) Centres for Microbial Interactions and Advanced Environmental Microbiology. My team conducts interdisciplinary research on biotechnology, climate-active gas and biogeochemical cycling.

My initial research revealed novel mechanisms (distinct to E. coli) controlling homeostasis of the essential metal iron in key N₂-fixing and pathogenic bacteria, sequenced the first Rhizobium genome, uncovered its iron regulon and novel metal transporters – all done when such research was cutting-edge and E. coli systems were just accepted as universal.

With continuous funding from UKRI, our lab has made world-leading contributions to research on one of Earth’s most abundant organosulfur compounds, dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) and its climate-active gas catabolites methanethiol (MeSH) and dimethylsulfide (DMS). Previously, DMSP biosynthesis and its catabolism, important to global sulfur and nutrient cycling and the climate, were generally thought as marine, oxic, photic and algal driven processes. Through our work, we have established (1) that an/oxic heterotrophic bacteria produce DMSP; (2) key proteins and mechanisms for DMSP synthesis (in algae, bacteria, corals and plants), import, lysis yielding DMS (in bacteria and fungi), and assimilation – highlighting vast unexpected biodiversity in the organisms/enzymes driving DMSP cycling; (3) microbes assimilating DMSP by DNA stable-isotope probing (SIP); (4) novel and abundant microbial enzymes/pathways yielding DMS from sulfide and MeSH; (5) the global distribution, significance and regulation of these enzymes to reveal overlooked hotspot and novel environments for DMSP/DMS production; and (6) biotech applications for microbes/enzymes that my team discovered and for DMSP as agri-biostimulants or bio-routes to high-value chemicals.