Ilda Jacobs A South African microbiologist jetted off to Siberia this week to capture microbes so that he can shoot them into space to help discover the history of life on Earth. Frank T Robb plans to capture as many “extremophile” microbes as he can from Siberia’s volcanic geysers and sulphur pits before firing them off in rockets. Once in space, he intends testing them to destruction to gauge their resistance to hard radiation and heat. The bugs that survive may hold the secret to colonising other worlds and the history of how life started on Earth. Extremophiles are bugs which can survive in extreme conditions, varying from extreme cold in Siberia’s blizzards to the fire-and-ice terrain of the Kamchatka peninsula where Robb and his team are headed. The multinational team of scientists hope to prove that bugs which can resist high heat can also resist radiation. Robb, a former lecturer in the microbiology department at the University of Cape Town, is the co-leader of the week- long mission to sample both modern and ancient extremophile microbes. Based at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI) on the east coast of the United States, Robb believes that the mission could revolutionise current DNA theories on the gene sequence of resistant microbes.
The one-celled Spartan life forms that brave boiling water, high radiation soils and heavy metals survive on odd, sometimes barebones DNA systems. Such molecular survival strategies could help researchers spawn new theories of evolution on Earth and on other planets.
“If the intense heat breaks the DNA, and these bugs can recover by fixing their DNA, the function could also help them withstand radiation,” said Robb. The most tolerant bugs captured by Robb and his team will join Nasa/UMBI experiments to expose microbes to naked sun radiation from a space shuttle.The bugs will also be exposed to deep space vacuum. If the bugs survive, they represent a form of life that is almost indestructible even in the harshest conditions imaginable and are therefore perfect for transmission from planet to planet. Robb said this week’s trip is the team’s third mission to Kamchatka and has already resulted in a mini-conference on sampling activities in hot volcanic areas. Kamchatka is an 800km volcanic ridge pocked by steamy natural “pots” with heavy mineral-rich deposits. There are 24 springs in Kamchatka, many of which have high uranium content.
The explorers will also look for microbes that live in and “eat” heavy metals in the soil. The goal is to recruit such organisms for bio-remediation. Bio-remediation refers to the clean-up of toxic pollution in soils. Microbes that produce oxygen and grow exclusively on carbon monoxide are also on the shopping list. The unusual genetics of extremo-philes could be useful in the development of new biotech tools for medicine, agriculture and other industries. Robb recently explored South Africa for extremophiles, sampling bugs in a town of microscopic proportions, Warmwatersburg, in the Klein Karoo. The town consists of just one building and a campsite. He has also sampled and grown cultures, “similar to yoghurt”, from bugs found in mud and water at the Caledon Spa hot springs, and plans to travel to Goudini Spa near Worcester for further sampling. Robb has travelled to New Zealand, Iceland and several areas in the US in search of extremophiles. He lectured at the University of Cape Town for seven years before joining Dr Rita Colwell’s team at the University of Maryland. South African Dennis Mader is also part of the field team on the quest for extremophiles in Siberia. The 2000 exploration will hire helicopters to go to sites in the wilderness that are too remote for tourists. A National Geographic team is covering the event and intends
documenting how the scientists scoop samples up for preliminary analysis in makeshift laboratories before eventually shipping millions of microbes back to the US for
research purposes. “Bug hunts are sometimes very dangerous, especially near hot, acidic pools,” said Robb. “Acids eat away the rock crusts around pools, and the surface crusts become very hazardous and way too thin for walking.” The relatively young science of extremophiles has to date already
delivered microbes which are used in the manufacturing of beer, medicines, paper products, plastics, paint and myriad other applications in medical biotechnology related to HIV/Aids and hepatitis diagnosis.