CAREER: Quorum enhanced sustainable treatment of nitrogen (QuEST-N)

职业：群体强化可持续氮处理 (QuEST-N)

• 批准号: 2349328
• 负责人: Jeseth Delgado Vela
• 金额: $ 54.55万
• 依托单位: Duke University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-10-01 至 2027-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2349328&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Quorum; enhanced; sustainable; treatment

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Environmental engineers have used microorganisms over a century to treat wastewater and protect public health. Biological wastewater treatment (WWT) also plays a critical role in ecosystem and environmental protection including the use of nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria to remove and convert excess nitrogen from wastewater to harmless nitrogen (N2) gas. Advances in environmental metagenomics are providing more detailed and in-depth information about microbial communities in WWT systems. Yet, environmental engineers and wastewater practitioners lack strategies and tools to leverage this new information to control the structure, composition, functional diversity, and metabolic pathways of nitrifying and denitrifying bacterial communities in WWT systems. The overarching goal of this CAREER proposal is to harness various forms of microbial communication signals, commonly referred to as quorum sensing (QS) molecules, to advance the design and operations of more efficient and sustainable biofilm reactors for nitrogen removal. The successful completion of this project will benefit society through the generation of new fundamental knowledge to advance the development and implementation of next generation biological nitrogen removal (BNR) processes in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs). Further benefits to society will be achieved through student education and training including the mentoring of a post-doctoral fellow, a graduate student, and three undergraduate students at Howard University.Advances in environmental microbiology, microbial ecology, and environmental biotechnology are providing unprecedented opportunities to design and build next generation biofilm reactors for the simultaneous removal of excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) from wastewater. Biofilm reactors are enabling WWTPs and WRRFs to harness slow growing microorganisms that are advantageous to BNR processes including anaerobic ammonium oxidizers (anammox) and denitrifying anaerobic methane oxidizers (DAMO). However, the design and operation of next generation biofilm reactors for BNR will require the control of the biofilm microbial ecology to achieve more efficient and cost-effective nitrogen removal from wastewater. The overarching goal of this CAREER project is to explore the use of quorum sensing (QS) to control and manipulate the microbial ecology of bacterial biofilms used in BNR reactors. QS involves the generation and release of signaling molecules known as autoinducers that enable bacterial communities to coordinate their behavior including the formation of biofilms. The guiding hypotheses of this research are that the presence of autoinducers changes the activity of nitrogen cycling bacteria and QS can be used to alter which organisms colonize a biofilm. The specific objectives of the proposed research are to: (1) Test the effect of autoinducers in cultures enriched for nitrogen cycling bacteria; (2) Evaluate the effect of autoinducers in nitrogen cycling bacteria in more complex biofilm communities; (3) Develop a biofilm model that incorporates QS; and (4) Evaluate a control strategy that uses autoinducer molecules in a membrane aerated biofilm reactor. The successful completion of this project has the potential for transformative impact through the generation of fundamental knowledge to advance the development and deployment of the new process of quorum enhanced sustainable treatment of nitrogen (QuEST-N) within WWTPs and WRRFs. To achieve the educational and training goals of this CAREER project, the Principal Investigator will leverage her ongoing collaboration with the Water Environment Federation (WEF) to 1) add a research training component to the InFLOW (Increasing Opportunities in Water) program at Howard University and 2) expand the program to other minority serving institutions (MSI) to advance diversity in STEM education and broaden participation in the water industry workforce.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该奖项是根据2021年《美国救援计划法》的全部或部分资助的（公共法117-2）。环境工程师已经使用了一个多世纪以来的微生物来治疗废水和保护公共卫生。生物废水处理（WWT）在生态系统和环境保护中也起着至关重要的作用，包括使用硝化和反硝化细菌去除和转化从废水中的多余氮转化为无害的氮（N2）气体。环境宏基因组学的进步正在提供有关WWT系统中微生物群落的更详细和深入的信息。然而，环境工程师和废水从业人员缺乏利用这一新信息来控制硝化和代谢途径的策略和工具。这项职业建议的总体目标是利用各种形式的微生物通信信号，通常称为法定感应分子（QS）分子，以推动更有效，更可持续的生物膜反应堆的设计和操作以去除氮。该项目的成功完成将通过产生新的基本知识来使社会受益，从而促进废水处理厂（WWTP）和水资源回收设施（WRRFS）中下一代生物氮去除（BNR）过程的开发和实施。将通过学生的教育和培训来实现进一步的社会利益废水。生物膜反应器正在使WWTP和WRRF可以缓慢生长的微生物，这些微生物对BNR过程有利，包括厌氧铵氧化剂（ANAMMOX）和硝化厌氧菌甲烷氧化剂（Damo）。但是，下一代生物膜反应器在BNR中的设计和操作将需要控制生物膜微生物生态学，以实现从废水中清除更有效且具有成本效益的氮。这个职业项目的总体目标是探索使用法定感应（QS）来控制和操纵BNR反应堆中使用的细菌生物膜的微生物生态学。 QS涉及称为自动诱导剂的信号分子的产生和释放，这些信号分子使细菌群落能够协调其行为，包括形成生物膜。这项研究的指导假设是，自动诱导剂的存在改变了氮循环细菌和QS的活性，可用于改变生物膜定植的生物体。拟议的研究的特定目标是：（1）测试富含氮循环细菌的培养物中自动诱导剂的作用； （2）评估自动诱导剂在更复杂的生物膜群落中氮循环细菌中的影响； （3）开发一种结合QS的生物膜模型； （4）评估在膜充气生物膜反应器中使用自动诱导物分子的控制策略。该项目的成功完成具有通过基本知识的产生，可以推进新的Quorum新过程的开发和部署，从而增强了WWTPS和WRRFS中的氮（QUEST-N）的可持续治疗。为了实现该职业项目的教育和培训目标，首席研究人员将利用她与水环境联合会（WEF）（WEF）的持续合作到1）在霍华德大学的流入率（增加水的机会）和2）将计划扩展到其他少数群体服务机构（MSI）中，以促进STEM教育和宽广的参与。认为值得通过基金会的智力优点和更广泛影响的评论标准来评估值得支持。