Hello. Well, I'm Geoffrey. Michael Gadd.
I'm a microbiologist, and I particularly work on
metals and microbes and the transformations that they do.
And the predominant organisms that I work with are
fungi.
Fungal biomineralization
refers to the ability of fungi to form minerals
and biomineralization, just as a word that refers
to the formation of minerals by living organisms.
It's found throughout the biological world and prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
They can make minerals in various ways, often by decomposition of
organic residues, where released elements
such as phosphorus could interact with other metals in the environment.
But they can also make minerals when they interact with rocks and minerals.
They can dissolve certain minerals,
releasing metals that can then reform other minerals.
Fungal biomineralization is important
to understand, as is all kinds of biomineralization.
In fact, because it is a fundamental component of all the elemental cycles
in the environment.
So carbon and hydrogen and oxygen, phosphorus, sulfur and all the metals
are cycled in the environment
through the land and through water and the air, for example.
And micro-organisms are key in these elemental cycles.
Biomineralization is an important part of such cycles because it can lock up
certain elements in an insoluble form, but also it can also provide a store
of these elements that organisms can use if they can find a way to release them.
It's also very important because it's a it's a process
that can occur and cause damage to buildings, for example.
But in a good way.
It can also be a process that can lock up potentially toxic pollutants,
including metals and radionuclides.
So fungal biominerals have many potential applications in a variety of contexts,
including bioremediation, element
biorecovery, land revegetation
and the application and use of reactive
nano mineral and nanoparticle products.
A potential application of of growing importance of fungal minerals
now is in the recovery of precious elements, particularly rare earth elements
and a variety of metals which are used in computers and mobile phones.
And in fact, every electronic material
you could name in the household and in the workplace
and many of these metals are getting to be in short supply now in the environment.
And we need to look at more improved ways
of reclamation and recovery from from our waste.
And indeed, some of the processes that fungi do can recover these metals
from solution and from electronic waste and all kinds of things
and from low grade ores, which provides another avenue to hopefully
sustain the future
of us obtaining these precious elements.
So as we can continue in the digital age.
One aspect that excites me about the future of this area is particularly
the ability of fungal systems to make nanoparticles.
And there's a growing interest in nanoparticles in all kinds of contexts
agricultural, environmental, medical, for example, and the finding
that fungal systems can produce a variety
of nanoparticles of different nano minerals or even different
nano elements, such as elemental selenium
provides exciting opportunity opportunities really for their use
in all kinds of electrochemical devices or catalytic devices.
Winning the Marjory Stephenson Prize means a lot to me because among the
the criteria of the Marjory Stephenson Prize is that
it's someone who should have made a contribution to microbiology.
And it's very nice that somebody might think somewhere
that I have made a contribution after 40 years of work.
So it's a it's a great honour and it's also a fantastic recognition
of the great people I've had in my lab over the years,
really outstanding scientists and great human beings.
And it's a great honour for for my part of science,
for my part of microbiology, it's very nice to expose
fungal processes to a wider audience.
And also
the fact that,
you know, this this area is indeed of current importance of relevance.
I mean, I think everybody can see that.
And I'm sure that the future looks very bright
indeed.