BIOTECHNOLOGY
Cleaning with Bacteria

An early example of biotechnology at ORNL was the 1972 demonstration by Chet Francis that garden soil bacteria in bioreactors could remove nitrates and trace metals from industrial waste effluents. ORNL built a pilot bioreactor to treat nitrate wastes at the uranium enrichment plant in Portsmouth, Ohio. The Oak Ridge Y-12 National Security Complex used Francis' design for a full-scale plant to treat nitric acid wastes. Bioremediation has continued at these sites using recombinant and natural bacteria to treat wastes underground.

In 1997 lysimeter experiments, ORNL used a genetically engineered microorganism to detect soil contaminants; its controlled release into the environment at a Department of Energy site was the first to be approved by government agencies.

In the 1960s Howard Adler and associates were studying the effects of radiation on Escherichia coli. Some radiation-damaged bacteria died except, mysteriously, when they were grown in the presence of other bacteria. The eventual explanation was an enzyme-containing membrane fraction from those other bacteria, which removed oxygen from the media, allowing the damaged E. coli bacteria to recover.

Adler and Jim Copeland developed a technique for extracting and freezing these membrane fragments and using them to remove oxygen from liquid media that support the growth of anaerobic bacteria (which die in oxygen). Their technique is useful for early detection of diseases caused by anaerobic bacteria, such as gangrene and tetanus, as well as production of chemicals like butanol. In 1987 they formed Oxyrase, a company that continues to sell diagnostic media to hospital pathology and research labs in North and South America, Asia, and Europe.

ORNL and other DOE national laboratories, working with Applied Carbo-Chemicals (ACC), developed a fermentation process using a novel microorganism that converts corn sugar to succinic acid, needed in the manufacture of de-icers, food additives, solvents, and ultimately plastics. ORNL's Nhuan Nghiem and Brian Davison developed the fermentation process in a bioreactor. ACC recently demonstrated this soon-to-be commercialized process with a 100,000-liter fermentation.—Brian Davison

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