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EXTREME SCIENCEMichael Madigan, a microbiologist with an international reputation, has won SIUC’s Outstanding Scholar award for 2001.
His work on these organisms, called extremophiles, has taken Madigan from hot springs in Yellowstone National Park, New Zealand, and Iceland, to the Dead Sea and the soda lakes of the western United States and North Africa, to the permanently frozen lakes of Antarctica’s Dry Valleys. Madigan’s peers have called him the world’s leading scientist in this area. "No one currently active in the scientific community has isolated and cultured more novel and interesting phototrophic organisms from both ‘normal’ and extreme environments," wrote Ohio State University microbiologist F. Robert Tabita in a letter supporting Madigan’s nomination for the award. "These new isolates have proven to be excellent and important tools to study the detailed molecular events and biochemical aspects of such basic processes as photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, and carbon dioxide assimilation. (They also have great potential) for such important applications as the biodegradation of environmental pollutants, the production of useful and biodegradable polymers, and the potential harnessing of some species for the generation of nitrogen fertilizer." A prolific writer, Madigan is lead author of the textbook Brock Biology of Microorganisms, widely considered the standard in its field. He also is co-editor of the 1,300-page Anoxygenic Photosynthetic Bacteria, a book heavily cited by other researchers. Since 1994 he has served as chief North American editor for Archives of Microbiology, one of the world’s top-rated science journals. --K. C. Jaehnig, Media & Communication Resources
For more information, see Michael Madigan's web page. Madigan is a professor in the Dept. of Microbiology. |
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Madigan
is a leading expert on anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria—bacteria that
live in airless environments and make energy from sunlight. He is particularly
interested in those that thrive in extremely hot, cold, salty, or alkaline
places—habitats resembling environments that existed when the earth was
young. This research has won him roughly $1.3 million in grants from such
federal agencies as the National Science Foundation and the Departments
of Energy and Agriculture.