The Institute for Microbial Biotechnology and Metagenomics (IMBM) is the largest research entity at the University of the Western Cape. It resides within the high-tech Life Sciences building and is home to over 55 researchers and support staff.
Professor Don Cowan is Director of the Institute and oversees 17 post-doctoral researchers along with numerous PhD and Masters fellows.
IMBM is involved in cutting edge research on the exploitation of microbial genome diversity, involving, amongst other things, gene discovery cloning and expression, while also conducting ground-breaking work in the area of biofuels.
Cowan is fascinated by the fact that organisms can live in virtually every habitat on earth, no matter how extreme, and this has led him to focus on the variety of organisms that live at extreme temperatures and on the mechanisms by which these microorganisms survive environmental extremes.
Cowan and his team are currently exploring both hot and cold deserts, searching for new genetic resources. The mineral soils of the Antarctic Dry Valley represent one of the most extreme environments on earth and microorganisms there are, exposed to extremely low temperatures, low water availability, high salinity and even periodic high radiation levels.
Cowan heads up teams who visit this cold desert annually. He is also leading teams into the hot deserts of Namibia where his team collaborates with a host of international researchers.
“The Namibian desert is so extreme that it is a good site for simulations of studying possible life out there in the solar system”, said New Zealand- born Cowan.
The area of ‘white biotechnology’ is becoming increasingly important on the national and international science agendas and new enzymes are being identified and used in a number of industrial areas.
“There is a growing push in South Africa to use waste biomass as a means to produce ethanol. Our researchers are finding new enzymes which will aid in breaking down this waste biomass,” Cowan explains.
The IMBM team is incredibly prolific and contributes to the field of study in numbers far higher than the national average. Cowan has published around 160 research papers, review articles and book chapters, and sits on the Editorial Boards of 13 international journals.
Looking forward, Cowan says that the Institute will use its strong research capacity to develop new fields , including the use of gene discovery methods to aid in biomedical research.