A scientific life of discovering new anaerobic C 1 microbes while trying to keep young (wo)men in science GRS August 9 th MIKE JETTEN SOEHNGEN INSTITUTE OF ANAEROBIC MICROBIOLOGY
May 26, 2015
A scientific life of discovering
new anaerobic C1 microbes
while trying to keep young
(wo)men in science
GRS August 9th
MIKE JETTEN
SOEHNGEN INSTITUTE OF ANAEROBIC MICROBIOLOGY
Table of content
Pivotal career steps/advise
- PhD and supervision
- post doc and family
- tenure and independence
- full professor and responsibilities
intertwined with C1 examples - Acetoclastic methanogens
- Hot and acid volcano C1 microbes
- AOM and anammox bacteria
Curt Rice, Tromso 6 steps to gender equality
Petra Rudolf, RU Groningen Roosevelt Foundation
Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, The Confidence Gap
http://www.genderinscience.org/
http://www.informatics-europe.org/images/documents/
more-women-in-informatics-research-andeducation_
2013.Pdf
My supervisors AJB, AJS, JGK, SG
My co workers, collaborators and funding agencies
Credits
Academic careers seem to be unappealing to both man and woman,
The impediments are perceived as disproportionate
The sacrifices are great.
Research career? PhD 1y PhD 3y Career in
Academia at 3y
M 61% 59% 21%
F 72% 37% 12%
Why is academia not appealing?
Hunt for projects/money; all consuming & competitive
String of post docs w/o prospects =
Lack of security
F Lack of self confidence
F Lack of good F role models
INTRODUCTION@MIKE-ROBIOLOGY
PhD Microbiology 1991 Wageningen University
Post doc 1991-1994
Assistant professor 1994-2000
Professor Microbiology 2000-
ERC AG 2008 ERC AG 2013
INTRODUCTION@MIKE-ROBIOLOGY
PhD Microbiology 1987 - 1991
Acetate Metabolism in Methanothrix soehngenii
- Optimally prepared by best anaerobic training in experts lab
(Georg Fuchs, Ulm 86)
- State-of-the-art research facilities
- Coherent team and colleagues
- Combination high level sport & study is
foundation 4 ambition & perseverance
- Get your papers out asap
- Excellent supervisors
Alex Zehnder
Prof Microbiology WUR
Director EAWAG CH
Presiden ETH Zurich
“fat rod” Methanothrix soehngenii
Acetate + ATP + HSCoA Ac-CoA + AMP +PPi
CO + H2O CO2 + 2[H]
Apart from giving scientific guidance, she/he should
• provide training in the art of presentation science
• teach how to write fast and how to write good papers
• find funding / help you find funding
• teach you how to write successful proposals
• teach you the “rules of the game” and how to change them
• give you challenging assignments and opportunities
• provide constructive feedback on unsuccessful endeavours
• introduce you to important professional contacts
• give you credit, and advocate you in the academic community
Need for a very good mentor/supervisor!
If not provided by your supervisor, be assertive and ask
If still not provided, get it someone/where else asap.
Apart from giving scientific guidance, she/he should teach importance of human
and leadership skills
- Educational skills to transfer knowledge
- Project and time management to be as effective as possible
- Scientific communication skills to become an articulate speaker/writer
- Interaction with people 4 networking & collaborating
- Personal happiness 4 balance work/private life
- Career management
- Leadership skills (vision, coaching, delegating, team building, supervision)
Absolute need for human and leadership skills!
These skills contribute up to 85% of your success!!
Chapter2@MIKE-ROBIOLOGY
Post doc 1991-1994
• Bring your own money & freedom
• Husband/Spouse program
• Complementary and synergy in skills
• Quality of supervision
• Nose for feasibility & serendipity
• practice make perfect but 95% is more effective!
• Publish asap & amap
• Train human and leadership skills
• Move on
Challenges in combining family life and career
• Family/career : there is never an easy equilibrium
• 2 body problem: not each location offers opportunity for both
• if your heart allows marry/partner outside your profession
• 50% shared responsibilities
• learn to live with little sleep asap
• (European) labour law = raise kids asap in PhD
• reality most academians have a family after 32
Only 1 in 3000 female physicists had a husband who was not
professionally active but took care of the home and the family
25% of the male physicists are in an equivalent situation.
USA: http://www.physics.wm.edu/dualcareer.html
Challenges in combining family life and career
Emancipation is still a long way to go
Ladies be assertive and do not take more than
50% share in family responsibilities
THE CONFIDENCE GAP For many young women in academia it is difficult to reach out to older
male colleagues to ask for advice
Women tend to underestimate their potential for success in Science.
Women apply when the meet 120% of requirements (M at 50%)
Women do gain confidence from role models!
Women in middle management are more inspiring F role models.
Affirmative action stimulates F in competition
Learning to own victory and survive defeat in sports is apparently good
training for owning triumphs and surviving setbacks at work
Curt Rice, Katty Kay and Claire Shipman
What should universities do:
- Use alumni network to help finding jobs for partners
- Consider partners as internal candidates for university vacancies
- Excellent child care facilities
- Reimbursement for babysitting service for unusual situations
- Family friendly working conditions:
- No meetings at hours that create conflict with family obligations….
- Mentor programs with good F role models
- Special lunch meetings/support groups
- gender neutral advertisements / balanced selection committees
- Many more………….
Way2independece@MIKE-ROBIOLOGY
Moving back to Europe: Assistant professor 1994-2000
• Bring your own money & personal grant
• Develop nose for feasibility of projects
• Practice make perfect but 95% is more effective!
• Be at right place and time (serendipity)
• Publish HI papers (1st or last author)
• Raise more money and build a team
• Joint Family responsibilities
• Complementary and synergy in skills
• Quality supervision/mentoring
• Train human and leadership skills
• Be assertive and/or move on
Calculations in the N cycle
NH4+ + NO2
- N2 + 2H2O ΔG’0 = -358 kJ/mol
Engelbert Broda
1910-1983
Anaerobic pilot plant, TU Delft, the Netherlands
Influent
Effluent
Mulder , van de Graaf et al FEMS Ecology 1995
ANAMMOX MILESTONES
1995 ANAEROBIC PILOT PLANT Mulder et al FEMS Ecol
1998 SBR ENRICHMENT CULTURES Strous et al AMB
1999 PHYLOGENETIC IDENTITY Strous et al Nature (MJ =37y)
2002 LADDERANE LIPIDS Damste et al Nature
2003 BLACK SEA
Kuypers et al Nature
Anammoxoglobus
propionic
Jettenia asiatica
KSU-1
© Jetten et al 2009
ANAMMOX MILESTONES
2006 GENOME ASSEMBLY Strous et al Nature
2008 CELL BIOLOGY Van Niftrik et al Mol Mic
2011 METABOLISM Kartal et al Nature
2013 CHINESE WETLANDS Zhu et al Nature Geoscience
Professor Microbiology 2000-
• Bring your own money/projects
• Refine nose for feasibility and serendipity
• Practice make perfect but 90% is even more effective!
• Raise a lot more money & build a large team
• Publish more HI papers
• Joint Family responsibility
• Complementary and synergy in skills
• Quality of Supervision & mentoring
• Networking / collaborations
• Become stronger and more assertive
New stable state or tipping point
• Transfer of knowledge
• Transfer of human and leadership skills
and become eligible for dean, VP, VC, etc
or move on??
Responsibilities@MIKE-ROBIOLOGY
INTRODUCTION@MICROBIOLOGY
Unexplored biodiversity
30,000 strains in ATCC & DMSZ
2,639,157 16S rRNA genes in RDP
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 nonillion
microbial cells on Earth
Terra
incognita
Microbial metabolic diversity
Undiscovered Chemolithoautotrophs
H2 CH4 H2S NH4+ Fe2+
O2
NO3- ??? ???
Fe3+
SO42-
CO2
After 40 years of searching in vain
They were being called
“impossible” microbes
ELECTRON DONORS
EL
EC
TR
ON
AC
CE
PT
OR
S
OXIC
ANOXIC
CS2
???
Undiscovered Chemolithoautotrophs
H2 CH4 H2S NH4+ Fe2+
O2
NO3- ??? ???
Fe3+
SO42-
CO2
After 40 years of searching in vain
They were being called
“impossible” microbes
ELECTRON DONORS
EL
EC
TR
ON
AC
CE
PT
OR
S
OXIC
ANOXIC
CS2
???
HOW TO DISCOVER THESE “IMPOSSIBLE” MICROBES?
• Survey of selected ecosystems
• Bring Best Samples to Lab
• Design optimal bioreactors
• Enrichment under optimal conditions
• Grow enough cells
• Use of the molecular toolbox
• Back to the ecosystem
• Application of the new microbes
• State of the art microbial methods
• Adequate National and EU funding
• International collaboration
• Industrial collaboration
• Skilled and enthusiastic team members
PRE REQUISITES
How to Discover new microbes?
Sampling Bioreactors Bioreactors Bioreactors Bioreactors Bioreactors Bioreactors Bioreactors Bioreactors Genomic Physiology Microscopy Ecology Biochemistry Application
• State of the art microbial methods
• Adequate National and EU funding
• International collaboration
• Industrial collaboration
• Skilled and enthusiastic team members
PRE REQUISITES
How to Discover of new microbes?
ERC AG 2008 ERC AG 2013
Added value of Awards
• Possibility to do research w/o restrictions
• Recognition @home university
• Many Invitations
• New collaborations
• Exclusive partnership with industry
• Job offers
• More awards and prizes (Matthew 25:29)
• Many student opportunities
ERC AG 2008
ERC AG 2013
Down side of (too much) success
• Harsher peer review (from such PI we expect….)
• Difficult to obtain additional grants
• Revenge taken out on younger staff & students
• Jealous colleagues
• Messy university politics
• To big for collaboration
• Where should phd/post docs move to?
• Hardly any friendly colleagues left
• It can be very lonely at the top
• Ne iupiter quidam placet omnibus
Added value / Down side ≥ 1
Most important PRE REQUISITE
Vacancies
Full professor
Tenure track
2 Post docs
10 PhD students
Skilled and enthusiastic team members
and give them the best possible training
in human and leadership skills
VOLCANIC
MICROBIOLOGY
MICROBIAL
INTERACTIONS
(AN)AEROBIC
OXIDATION OF METHANE
ANAMMOX
Methane cycle in wetlands Kosten & Ettwig
Symbiotic seagrass fields Hooiberg, vd Heiden
van Alen, Op den Camp
N2 fixation peat lands Kox, vd Elzen
Lamers, Ettwig
Rhizobiome of wetlands Vaksmaa, Lueke
Delia Gut microbiome Welte
Symbiotic Microbiology
2014-2019 projects
Discoveries in CH4 & CS2
Genome seq
Physiology
Proteins
1 PhD thesis
Hot and Acid Volcano Microbiology
2008-2013
CH4 + 2O2 CO2 + 2H2O
At pH < 1 and 55°C
© Pol et al 2007
Methylacidiphilum fumariolicum SolV
Sampling at Solfatara, Naples, Italy Enrichment & isolation
Poor growth without
mudpot water
Evaporating and ashing still stimulated growth:
which mineral /element ?
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.07
0.08
0.09
Ce Sm Eu Gd None or Ca
Gro
wth
rate
(h
-1)
Maximum growth rates with Ce and REE with higher atomic
numbers tested individually.
Which cellular
component does
contain Cerium?
A SDS-PAGE (12%) of the purified methanol dehydrogenase of strain SolV
B the UV-Vis spectrum of the pure enzyme
0.0
0.4
0.8
1.2
1.6
2.0
250 300 350 400 450 500 550
Wavelength (nm)
Exti
nct
ion
(b
lack
lin
e)
0.00
0.04
0.08
0.12
0.16
0.20
Exti
nct
ion
(re
d li
ne
)
28
36
55
72
93
130
kDa
250
1 2
1 = Cell extract (50 μg protein)
2 = Pure MDH (10 μg protein)
A B
Methane cycle in volcanoes
SolV isolated
Growth dependent on REE
Genome sequenced
Rubisco as CO2 fixation pathway
N2 fixation
Transcriptome
Cell Biology in progress
Nitrosative stress in progress
VOLCANIC
MICROBIOLOGY
MICROBIAL
INTERACTIONS
(AN)AEROBIC
OXIDATION OF METHANE
ANAMMOX
Does nitrate/nitrite dependent Anaerobic Oxidation of
Methane (AOM) exist???
ERC AG 2013
How does ANAMMOX make the
ROCKET FUEL HYDRAZINE ?
Protein purification
15N14N
Protein activity
Hydrazine and N2 production
Protein crystalisation
Immunogold labelling hzsABC
Anammox, AAA, SolV, M. oxyfera and
other new C1 microbes could save the world
Thank you !
Unique bacteria hiding out in a witches’ brew of anoxic
water not only thrive in cold wetlands and oceans but
also chow down its ammonium and methane
Microbial science = Fun
Leadership skills = 85% success!
The future = bright for Women in Science!
Never give up !