Jonathan Van Hamme

The first professor to be profiled in this blog is Dr. Jonathan Van Hamme. Jon is a top researcher at Thompson Rivers University and a bright mind in the field of microbiology and bioremediation. Graduating from Waterloo, with a PhD in the field of petroleum microbiology, Jon has much to share regarding this hot topic research area—especially with the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

MicroProfile

Name: Dr. Jonathan Van Hamme

Position: Associate Professor of Microbiology

Location: Thompson Rivers University

Favorite Microorganism: Rhodococcus Sp. JVH1 and Thiomargarita namibiensis

Research Interests: Environmental microbiology, biodegradation of contaminants, and more

Ongoing research projects:

• Biodegradation of organic contaminants including chlorinated and fluorinated compounds;
• Characterization and antimicrobial activity of lantibiotics; and
• Microbiological characteristics of beef and beef products.

On June 11th Jon and I sat down and discussed a variety of topics relating to microbiology, his passion for research, and what he looks for in students. Here is what he has to say:

MicroCanada What got you interested in microbiology ?

JV My first biodegradation experiment was in grade 7 or 8. Someone released a biodegradable plastic bag; I was skeptical. So I dug up a section of my mom's garden—which she wasn't too happy about—but happy that I was doing something scientific. I also kept a control bag in my room and buried a sample in one of my plants in my room. I would dig it up to see what happened, and nothing happened. It wasn't a particularly well designed experiment, but shortly there after they pulled the bag off the market. I didn't really know what would happen to the bag, how the microbes worked on them, at this stage.

When I went to university I went into a co-op biology degree, but considered going into environmental sciences. My first lab job was an environmental engineering position, lots of analytical chemistry, and we were using advanced oxidation processes to treat industrial wastes. We would do a lot of pilot scale experiments, to treat a variety of wastes. I asked my supervisors "well, I'm a biologist, but I am interested in this field, what can I get into" and they suggested bioremediation and microbiology. So I started taking as many microbiology courses as I could, to go after that.

MicroCanada When you are advertising for new students, what are the qualities of a good student that you look for.

JV I think the #1 quality of a good student that I am interested in is self-motivation; and linked into that is someone who is keen and interested in learning. Someone who will integrate information from a variety of sources, and will look for new information, to meld into their experiments. Also, someone who can self-evaluate and be critical of their research. As well, someone who is fun!

MicroCanada Through your career, what technological advancement stands out to you as a moment where you though: "Wow, this is going to revolutionize science and microbiology."

JV I think the major thing thats been happening is the high throughput and advanced sequencing that's available now. It's such a powerful tool to quickly and inexpensively sequence a genome. Currently all of the metagenomic research that is going on is revolutionizing environmental microbiology.

MicroCanada If you controlled a lab with no restrictions and access to work surrounding the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. What type of research would you most enjoy pursuing regarding this spill.

JV It would have been good to sample environments that are predicated to be contaminated by the spill and get baseline data on these environments, including the physical and chemical properties of these environments, and evaluate the microbial communities and metabolic activities of these areas. Then research could link up with people doing higher level ecology and evaluate the microbial communities, and their metabolic activities, before, during and after the spill. Additionally it would have neat to relate this with the social and societal implications of the spill.

As well some practical bioremediation type work: not only on what hits the beaches, but potentially on the material that could be skimmed off the water that isn't recoverable. I used to think it would be cool, a bit impractical, to have a ship that could skim the oil, do oil-water separations, and and treat the oil on the ship with fermenter systems to such a point where you could return the water to the ocean.

MicroCanada What do you see as a promising field in the area of microbiology?

JV I think more and more there will be a need to understand bio-infonmatics. There is a need for people who understand the computing side of things as well as the molecular microbiology aspects. Microbiology is truly a multi-disciplinary area of research because the impact every environment that we know of. No matter what your other discipline is you can probably combine microbiology to it, and do some neat things.

I think in the future, hopefully there will be a shift to more traditional biochemistry so that we can make sense of all the genomic information that is available. There is a lot of punitive this, unknown function, and work needs to be done back to tie-in the basics to complete this.

Thanks to Dr. Jonathan Van Hamme for providing his time for this interview. I'm sure that it will help a variety of students, and interested community members on the value of microbiology to Canada and the Globe. For Microbiology Canada, I'm Paul Moote saying Cheerio.