As a college student, Dianne Newman majored in German, translating descriptions of Greek and Roman antiquities into English for Berlin's Pergamon Museum. She may seem a surprising candidate to pioneer in a field focusing on the interplay between microbes and the Earth's surface environment, but she is combining microbiology with geology to do just that.
Newman explores how microbes affect the structure of the rocks in which they grow, specifically how they use minerals like arsenic and iron in their metabolism. It's an area of research that is yielding new insight into the earliest forms of life while offering a framework for studying the phenomenon of bacterial biofilms.
She studies how anaerobic bacteria survived millions of years ago, before the atmosphere contained oxygen. These bacteria, in essence, "breathed" iron, and Newman focuses on how they used it in the electron transfer process that was fundamental for their metabolism.
Her studies helped reveal how modern forms of these bacteria excrete molecules that help them utilize the iron in surrounding rock. Newman identified some of the genes that create this metabolic machinery, uncovering insights into the microbes' evolution. She also studies how bacteria that grow in arsenic-contaminated sediments circumvent arsenic's toxicity and use it for respiration.
Newman's work may produce medically relevant insights into bacterial growth. Many bacterial infections occur in an anaerobic environment. Her studies may uncover information about bacteria's relationship to Earth's early environment that can be applied to fighting infection.
Newman's research is relevant to understanding the largely unknown biology of biofilms, which develop in many bacterial infections. Understanding the complexities of anaerobic metabolism with biofilms will aid in developing better techniques to control their growth. Such studies could yield a new class of targets for drugs designed to attack bacterial biofilms.
