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Tamar Barkay Tamar Barkay
Professor
 Biochemistry and Microbiology
Lipman 333C
76 Lipman Drive
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Phone: 732-932-9763 x333
Fax: 732-932-8965
Email: barkay@aesop.rutgers.edu
Website: aesop.rutgers.edu/~dbm/tamarbarkay.html

Expertise Summary
  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.

Impacts: 1. Mercury transformations 2. Mercury bioremediation 3. Microbe –metal interactions

Research Projects
  • THE ROLE OF MICROBIAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE GEOCHEMICAL CYCLING OF MERCURY

    • Selected Publications
    Bacterial mercury resistance from atoms to ecosystems
      Journal: FEMS Microbiol. Rev.
     Authors: Barkay, T., S. Miller, and A. O. Summers
    Volume: 27    Pages: 355-384
    Date Published: 2003
    Metal and radionuclide bioremediation: Issues, considerations, and potentials.
      Journal: Curr. Opinion Microbiology
     Authors: Barkay, T and J Schaefer
    Volume: 4    Pages: 318-323
    Metal resistance among aerobic chemoorganotrophic bacterial isolates from the deep terrestrial subsurface
      Journal: Can. J. Microbial.
     Authors: Benyehuda, G., J. Coombs, P.M. Ward, D. Balkwill, and T. Barkay
    Volume: 49    Pages: 151-156
    Date Published: 2003
    Molecular and biochemical investigation of the potential for microbial mercury volatilisation in the Idrijca River- Gulf of Trieste ecosystem.
      Journal: Materials Geoenviron
     Authors: Barkay, T
    Volume: 48    Pages: 109-115

     

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