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The emergence of life on the planet earth refers to billions of years ago, but the environmental conditions that supported life formation was much more different from what we experience today. Primary forms of life including ancient bacteria and archaea were the organisms that could tolerate the harsh conditions that existed on the earth. Some of these unique microorganisms have been survived till now and have their own niches in different kinds of extreme environments. However, the organisms that can tolerate extreme environmental conditions do not restricted to ancient microorganisms. There are lots of extreme environments from different points of view including temperature, salinity, acidity, etc. These ecosystems have been evolved during the geological and also ecological changes that gradually happened in a long period of time. These changes have been occurred so slowly that their resident fauna and flora have had enough time to adapt their physiological capabilities to enable them to survive. These organisms, termed extremophiles, have great biotechnological potentials for different industrial procedures and as a result are being of great interest recently.
There are great opportunities to study extremophiles in Iran. The majority of the Land of Iran contains large amounts of salts and so considered as extreme environment. There are many hypersaline lakes with different chemical composition spread all around the country. The Urmia Lake, the world’s third largest hypersaline lake, is located in Iran. Oil fields containing large amounts of salt are considered as unique research opportunities. Besides, there are a lot of highly polluted environments in hypersaline areas in Iran which are the best choices for bioremediation studies of extremophile microorganisms. Deserts, semi-active volcanoes with hot springs, acidic springs, acidic waste drainage of mines, mud volcanoes, etc. are the other potential opportunities to study various extremophile organisms.
The department of Microbiology founded in 1972 by Dr. Malekzadeh in the Faculty of Biology, University of Tehran. The extremophiles research laboratory was developed in 2003 by Dr. Amoozegar as a part of this department. Graduate students in the master’s level of studying have been working in this research center in the following years and doctorate students began to work in 2007. Currently a dynamic and interactive research circumstance has been provided for our graduate students that guide them through an encouraging prospect. We have close relationships with many scientific research centers worldwide that are the main leaders of extremophiles researches. We are ready to perform collaborative research projects with other extremophiles scientists and welcome knowledge exchange in the field of extremophiles studies.
Some of our main research interests are listed below:
- Discovery of new extreme environments.
- Determination and preservation of microbial diversity in extreme ecosystems.
- Screening and identification of extremophile microorganisms producing valuable industrial enzymes and optimization of their production.
- Isolation and identification of extremophile microorganisms producing phytotoxin and optimization of their production.
- Isolation and identification of extremophile microorganisms producing carotenoids and optimization of their production.
- Isolation and identification of extremophile microorganisms producing biopolymer and bioplastics and optimization of their production.
- Biodegradation and Bioremediation studies in extreme environments.
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