S58: Multi-scale modeling of microbial ecology in subsurface environment

Recent advances in experimental and computational technologies have enabled the detailed characterization of biological systems. In particular, the molecular components of these systems including the list of genes, proteins they encode, and compounds that interact with these proteins can be determined. This availability of tools to analyze system-wide changes at the level of the genes, proteins, and metabolites has created significant opportunities to understand cellular functions resulting in the emergence of systems biology and specifically metabolic modeling. The development of metabolic models for environmentally relevant bacteria and their use in optimizing practical applications in electricity generation and bioremediation will be discussed.  Finally, extensions of this approach for the analysis of microbial ecology in sub-surface environments will be presented. Specifically, the use of genome-based approaches to study the dynamics of competition between different species of iron reducing bacteria that are critical for uranium bioremediation will be discussed. The modeling results provide an improved understanding of the factors that control the growth and respiration of the microbial population and their impact on uranium bioremediation in heterogeneous environments. Finally, optimization strategies based on the dynamic genome-scale metabolic models of microbial community relevant to Uranium bioremediation will be presented.