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Center for Microbial Communities

Institut for Kemi og Biovidenskab

Center for Microbial Communities

The overall research mission of the Center for Microbial Communities (CMC) is to provide new fundamental understanding of structure and function of microbial communities in engineered and natural habitats. This provides insight into improved management of various microbial processes and advises how microbial communities can solve, in a sustainable way, some of the grand challenges the society faces.

Institut for Kemi og Biovidenskab

Center for Microbial Communities

The overall research mission of the Center for Microbial Communities (CMC) is to provide new fundamental understanding of structure and function of microbial communities in engineered and natural habitats. This provides insight into improved management of various microbial processes and advises how microbial communities can solve, in a sustainable way, some of the grand challenges the society faces.

CMC has currently approx. 35 researchers, primarily from Department of Chemistry and Bioscience, AAU. We have a close collaboration with researchers from Department of Microbiology and Ecosystem Science, University of Vienna, Austria, and Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, besides many other national and international key institutions in the field. 

The Center for Microbial Communities (CMC) was founded in 2013 as an interdisciplinary research center funded by Aalborg University, Danish and German Research councils, the EU and additional support from industry and foundations.

Research projects

  • Microflora Danica

    Microflora Danica is a large 4-year project aiming to describe the microbiome of Denmark, ending in 2022. Our ambition is to discover and characterize the microbial diversity across all parts and habitats of Denmark.

  • Illumination of microbial dark matter

    Microbes play a vital role in most processes in the biosphere and are essential for solving present and future environmental challenges. Millions of bacterial species exist on the planet, but only few of these are isolated and described today.

  • Identification of the microbial world

    Microbes play a vital role in most processes in the biosphere. They are also essential for human health and for solving present and future environmental challenges. While it is estimated that millions of bacterial species exist on the plant, only about 5000 of these are isolated and described today.

  • Characterization of microbial communities

    Microbial communities play a vital role in most processes in the biosphere and are essential for solving present and future environmental challenges, such as treatment of water and wastewater, recovery of resources (e.g. phosphorus), production of “green” chemicals (e.g. bioplastics), and production of bioenergy (methane, electricity).

  • Microbial evolution

    Microbial communities play a vital role in most processes in the biosphere. The present understanding of their development and function does not include the evolution of new species and functions, i.e. the adaptation to new conditions due to changes in their DNA, primarily due to the lack of suitable methods to monitor evolutionary mechanisms within natural communities.

  • Wastewater microbial ecology

    Research is going on in the field of microbial molecular ecology and systems microbiology in relation to biological treatment of municipal and industrial wastewater using activated sludge, biofilms, MBR reactors and digesters. The overall aim is to understand structure and function of the entire ecosystems, factors controlling these, and design microbial communities that ensure an optimal operation.

  • Optimization of wastewater treatment plants

    Microbial communities play a vital role treatment of wastewater in activated sludge wastewater treatment plants. In this project, we will investigate whether fast analysis of the microbial community by 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing within few days can be used to optimize the plants.

  • OnlineDNA

    OnlineDNA - Enhanced performance of environmental biotechnology systems through online DNA surveillance of microbial communities

  • Microbial degradation of pollutants

    The aim of this project is to identify microorganisms in sludge and the environment able to degrade Triclosan and related compounds by microautoradiography and stable isotope probing as well as to identify the conditions favorable for complete elimination of triclosan (mineralisation).

  • Medical microbiology

    The Group of Medical Microbiology at Aalborg University encompasses researchers from Department of Chemistry and Bioscience and Department of Health Technology.

  • BioFilm

    Most bacteria produce various surface structures of importance for bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation. The aim of this project is to reveal structure and function of amyloid surface structures, primarily fibrils, in a number of environmental and medical biofilms containing microorganisms from various taxonomic groups.

  • ION accumulation in bacteria

    Many microorganisms in nature live under dynamic conditions with continuous changes in organic substrates, electron acceptors (e.g. oxygen and nitrate) and nutrients (e.g. phosphorus, P). A common strategy among bacteria growing in gradients or dynamic systems is to be very versatile in substrate uptake and/or to take up large amounts of substrates and store them for later use

  • NomiGas

    In the NomiGas project we will establish a novel microbiological platform encompassing extensive microbial community analysis, discovery of indicator species and production of a functional genomics catalogue and metabolic models of key organisms.

  • ReCoverP

    In the ReCoverP project we will increase the P recovery from wastewater and transform it into high quality P products that can be used in agriculture and industry.

  • EcoDesign

    The Danish Council for Strategic Research has founded the EcoDesign MBR Centre in the period from 2010-2016 together with companies and universities.

  • Albertsen Lab

    The Albertsen Lab is part of Center for Microbial Communities at Aalborg University. The Center has approx. 30 young scientist working with structure and function of microbial communities, primarily related to environmental biotechnology. The Center has state-of-the art equipment within DNA sequencing (Illumina MiSeq & HiSeq and Oxford Nanopore MinION & PromethION), proteomics, metabolomics and advanced microscopy.

Contact

Head of Center: Per Halkjær Nielsen
E-mail: phn@bio.aau.dk  
Tel.: (45) 9940 8503
Mobile: (45) 2173 5089

Scientific Secretary: Marta Nierychlo
E-mail: mni@bio.aau.dk 
Mobile: (45) 6172 3721

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