Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology
Home Page: aesop.rutgers.edu/~barkay
76 Lipman Drive - Room 333C
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8525
(732) 932-9763 x333
Fax: (732) 932-8965
E-mail: barkay@aesop.rutgers.edu
Professor
B.S. (Microbiology), Hebrew University, 1974
Ph.D. (Microbiology), University of Maryland, 1980Microbial transformation of metals
Research in my laboratory is focused on the microbial ecology of the interactions of microbes with toxic metals. Specifically, we are looking at microbial transformations of metals and how they affect metal toxicity and accumulation patterns in the environment and at the genetics and physiology of metal resistance and transformations in bacteria. This research supports efforts in bioremediation of metal contaminated environments. Two on-going research projects are focused on the role of microbes in the formation and accumulation of methylmercury in aquatic environments. Methylmercury is the most toxic form of mercury which is accumulated and biomagnified in fish and shellfish posing a risk to predators (including humans) that rely on the aquatic food chain for sustenance. A third project examines the role of horizontal gene transfer among bacteria in the evolution of metal resistance in microbial communities that inhabit metal and radionuclei impacted subsurface (below the root zone) soils. Such genetic spread might facilitate microbial survival and activities in metal contaminated environments. Our research relies heavily on the application of molecular tools, such as cloning, gene probing, mRNA transcript analysis, sequencing and PCR amplification, in microbial ecology.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Chatziefthimiou, A., M. Crespo-Medina, Y. Wang, C. Vetriani, and T. Barkay. 2007. The isolation and initial characterization of mercury resistant chemolithotrophic thermophilic bacteria from mercury rich geothermal springs. Extremophiles 11:469-479
Kritee K., J. Blum, M. Johnson, B. Bergquist, and T. Barkay. 2007. Mercury stable isotope fractionation during reduction of Hg(II) to Hg(0) by mercury resistant microorganisms. Env. Sci. & Technol. 41:1889-1895
Poulain, A.J. S.M. Ní Chadhain, P.A. Ariya, M. Amyot, E. Garcia, P.G.C. Campbell, G.J. Zylstra, and T. Barkay. 2007. Microbes express mercury resistance in the High Arctic: Implications for mercury toxicity in remote polar regions. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 73:2230-2238
Ní Chadhain, S., J.K. Schaefer, S. Crane, G.J. Zylstra, and T. Barkay. 2006. Analysis of mercuric reductase (merA) gene diversity in an anaerobic mercury–contaminated sediment enrichment. Environ. Microbiol. 8:1746-1752
Wiatrowski, H.A., P.M. Ward, and T. Barkay. 2006. Novel reduction of mercury (II) by mercury-sensitive dissimilatory metal reducing bacteria. Env. Sci. Technol. 40:6690-6696
Barkay, T., and I. Wagner-Döbler. 2005. Microbial transformations of mercury: potentials, challenges, and achievements in controlling mercury toxicity in the environment. Adv. Appl. Microbiol. 57:1-52
