Xavier Maymó-Gatell

Maymó-Gatell, Xavier

Hemeroteca Cientifica Catalana

PERSPECTIVES Fundamental things apply:the case of DehalococcoidesethenogenesYou must remember this, / a kiss is still a kiss, / a sigh is just a sigh; / thefundamental things apply, / as time goes by. Herman Hupfeld (1894-1951), As time goes by (1931; made famous in the1942 film Casablanca) L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux (Chapter 21).Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944), Le petit prince (1943)Searching for wordsMost successful applications of science, at least at some stagein their development, are the products of basic research, muchof which takes place behind the scenes but is nonethelessessential for the final result. Of course, there may be examplesto the contrary. George Porter (1920-2002), Nobel Laureate inChemistry 1967, said: “Thermodynamics owes more to thesteam engine than the steam engine owes to science.” But thereality is that applicable results of science are generallyachieved from many fragments of information. This involves aseries of gradual scientific successes, which at the time thework was completed their degree of recognition by the scien-tific community may not have been comparable to the effortinvested. Despite this lack of recognition, the research may laterbecome fundamental to a specific application. How many pub-lished results or techniques have been forgotten for years onlyto be rediscovered and used later by the private sector? Whilepurely practical, applied science may be commercially attrac-tive, financially rewarding, and possibly essential, in the longrun this approach alone will not guarantee success.  It is basicscience, leading to fundamental results, that makes appliedresearch feasible and which therefore must be nurtured. What are exactly “fundamental results”? MerriamWebster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines “fundamental” assomething “of central importance”, “serving as an original orgenerating source”, and “dealing with general principles ratherthan practical application”.This is, in fact, the job (or the aspiration) of basic science.The importance of a given “fundamental” contribution willdepend, among other factors, on the priorities set by societyand by its view of life. The value assigned to a particular fieldof study or the scope extended to a specific project derivefrom global concerns, which, in turn, determine the potentialworth of basic research findings. While this may be true, it isalso true that present-day priorities cannot predict either thefuture importance of such findings or their relevance toresearchers in other fields of study, who may already be ableto appreciate the potential applications of a seemingly trivialresult. An early example of this was described by J.J.Thomson (discoverer of the electron), in a speech deliveredin 1916 [quoted on p. 198 of The Life of Sir J.J. Thomson,Lord Rayleigh, Cambridge University Press, 1942]: “I willgive just one example of the ‘utility’ of […] (basic) research,one that has been brought into great prominence by theWar—I mean the use of X-rays in surgery. Now how was thismethod discovered? It was not the result of a research inapplied science starting to find an improved method of locat-ing bullet wounds. […] No, this method is due to an investi-gation in pure science, made with the object of discoveringwhat is the nature of Electricity.” Also, as C.H. LlewellynSmith wrote: “the reasons we have practical computers now,and did not have them 100 years ago, […] is because of dis-coveries in fundamental physics which underwrite modernelectronics, developments in mathematical logic, and theneed of nuclear physicists in the 1930s to develop ways ofcounting particles” [What’s the use of basic science? by C.H.Llewellyn Smith, former Director-General of the CERN. At:http://public.web.cern.ch]. Such examples are countless.So, basic research leads to fundamental results that maylater be used in developing and applying technological im-provements (Fig. 1). However, results that are or will becomeXavier Maymó-GatellCredit Initiatives, Andorra laVella, Principality of Andorra INTERNATIONAL MICROBIOLOGY (2005) 8:137-140 www.im.microbios.orge-mail: xmaymo@creditandorra.ad138 INT. MICROBIOL. Vol. 8, 2005fundamental are not usually predictable. Might Watson andCrick heve predictal the cloning of dinosaur DNA? DidRutherford foresee nuclear power? Since this was obviouslynot the case, then why do institutions controlling researchfunds exert such powerful control over deciding what shouldbe investigated? A few lines of applied research will clearlydeserve right of passage, but by no means should the bulk ofbasic research funding be obliterated by a short-term, finan-cially or commercially derived vision of knowledge. Theconstant four-dimensional (vertical, horizontal, in depth, andacross time) transfer of scientific information rules out theprospect of a world researched only by applied scientists tothe detriment of basic-research scientists, as postulated bysome. Carl Sagan (1934-1996), in a meeting at CornellUniversity celebrating his 60th birthday, two years before hisearly death, conveyed a clear message: nothing applied maybe pursued successfully without its fundamental base beingwell-developed. Basic research is the key to obtaining funda-mental results that, at some point in time, will become essen-tial to progress in applied research and to the well-being ofsociety. As a consequence, public institutions should pursuita merit-based approach to supporting basic research (funda-mental results do not yield immediate revenues), whichmeans that long-term investments with an assumed long pay-back must be made using tax revenues, with the paybackoccurring later in the form of either a financial return on theinitial investment or an application that improves society’swell-being. If this strategy were followed, both basic scienceand applied research would thrive.A case reportWithin my previous field of study (microbial ecology),results compiled from decades of basic research have beenfundamental to a wide variety of applications, including goldbiomining (Thiobacillus ferrooxidans), the production ofbiodegradable plastics (polyhydroxyalkanoates-producingbacteria), the improvement of rumen and soil-plant-microbesymbiotic interactions, sewage clean-up, and bioremediationof recalcitrant toxic compounds in contaminated sites.On January 7, 2005, a paper was published in Science [7]reporting the genome sequence of Dehalococcoides etheno-genes strain 195 (Fig. 2), the only bacterium known that iscapable of reductively dechlorinating tetrachloroethene(PCE) and trichloroethene (TCE)—two cancer-producinggroundwater pollutants—to the non-toxic form ethene.Deciphering the D. ethenogenes genome sequence con-tributes to a better understanding of the complex nutrientrequirements, respiratory processes, phylogenic relation-MAYMÓ-GATELLInt. Microbiol.Fig. 1. Roadmap to the application of basicscience.139INT. MICROBIOL. Vol. 8, 2005ships, and enzymatic reactions of this bacterium, and lays thefoundations for synthesizing specific probes and for geneticstudies. The Science article has surely improved our scientif-ic knowledge on how life works at some of its smallest lev-els, but it will also allow researchers to elucidate the regula-tory network involved in the dechlorination of PCE, TCE,both dichloroethene (DCE) isomers, and vinyl chloride (VC)to innocuous compounds. Together with previous studies[1–6] of the growth requirements and other characteristics ofD. ethenogenes strain 195, the basis for the effective biore-mediation of PCE-, TCE- and DCE-polluted environmentshas been established.The successful use of D. ethenogenes in bioremediation isthe result of both basic and applied science, in an essential,intense, and extended team effort that has been going on formore than 15 years. In 1997, I isolated D. ethenogenes strain195 [4], the genus-defining strain, while carrying out doctoralthesis research under the direction of Stephen H. Zinder, atthe Department of Microbiology of Cornell University. Ourprogress would have been slower and less fruitful if it werenot for continuous collaboration with the laboratory of JamesM. Gossett, of the Engineering Department at the same uni-versity, more involved in applied science. The professionalrelationship among the two laboratories made it impossibleto divide the work into basic and applied efforts. Working asa multidisciplinary team not only improved the quality of theoutput, but also—as the published articles show—allowed usto maximally benefit from results, derived either directly orindirectly, of basic research carried out over the previousdecades. This earlier research, comprising studies onmethanogenic and acetogenic bacteria, anaerobic cultureenrichment techniques, and the microbiology and biochem-istry of electron donors and acceptors, supplied crucial infor-mation, without which neither the remediation of environ-ments polluted with chloroethenes nor the sequencing of theD. ethenogenes strain 195 genome would have been possible. Final thoughtsThe Casablanca song says, intelligently, “the fundamentalthings apply, as time goes by”. In science, this should not beinterpreted as meaning that everything considered funda-mental must have a practical application, or that everythingresulting from applied research is directly derived from basicresearch. It does imply, however, that we must strongly sup-port and encourage basic science in order to improve thegeneral social welfare and living conditions on Earth. Thefact is that, regretfully, we walk through our days immersedin a society ruled by governments and financial markets that,because of their chronic short-term interests, are only willingto understand fundamental efforts in the light of their appliedand thus almost-immediate commercial potential. Needlessto say, this is not a good strategy for facing the future.Public institutions must support basic research regardlessof its less than probable immediate returns (and also becauseof this). However, this is not an opinion likely to win votes,nor does it produce quick economic and financial gains.Nevertheless, the results that society expects from appliedscience depend on the priorities that society sets for itself. Byneglecting or annihilating basic science research, we shutourselves out of a better world if our priorities, as a whole,DEHALOCOCCOIDES ETHENOGENESFig. 2. Dehalococcoides ethenogenes strain 195. Mechanism and genes in a schematic genome (See Science 7 Jan. 2005, p. 107.)MAYMÓ-GATELL2. Fennell DE, Gossett JM, Zinder SH (1997) Comparison of butyric acid,ethanol, lactic acid, and propionic acid as hydrogen donors for thereductive dechlorination of thetrachloroethene. Environ Sci Techn31:918-9263. Maymó-Gatell X, Anguish T, Zinder SH (1999) Reductive dechlorina-tion of chlorinated ethenes and 1,2-dichloroethane by “Dehalococcoidesethenogenes” 195. Appl Environ Microbiol 65:3108-31134. Maymó-Gatell X, Chien Y-T, Gossett JM, Zinder SH (1997) Isolation ofa bacterium that reductively dechlorinates tetrachloroethene to ethene.Science 276:1568-15715. Maymó-Gatell X, Nijenhuis I, Zinder SH (2001) Reductive dechlorina-tion of cis-1,2-dichloroethene and vinyl chloride by “Dehalococcoidesethenogenes”. Environ Sci Techn 35:516-5216. Maymó-Gatell X, Tandoi V, Gossett JM, Zinder SH (1995) Charac-terization of an H2-utilizing enrichment culture that reductively dechlo-rinates tetrachloroethene to vinyl chloride and ethene in the absence ofmethanogenesis and acetogenesis. Appl Environ Microbiol 61:3928-39337. Seshadri R, Adrian L, Fouts DE, et al. (2005) Genome sequence of thePCE-dechlorinating bacterium Dehalococcoides ethenogenes. Science307:105-108were to change someday (and let us hope they will). Shouldwe continue to pursue material prosperity only out of individ-ual interest? Or should we also aim at achieving further cul-tural and education advances? As Robert Wilson (1914-2000), first director of the Fermilab, stated in front of aCongressional Committee, “my research may not contributeto the defense of our country, but it will make it worthdefending” [What’s the use of basic science? by C. H.Llewellyn Smith, former Director-General of CERN. At:http://public.web.cern.ch] References1. DiStefano TD, Gossett JM, Zinder SH (1992) Hydrogen as an electrondonor for dechlorination of tetrachloroethene by an anaerobic mixedculture. Appl Environ Microbiol 58:3622-3622INT. MICROBIOL. Vol. 8, 2005140

Fundamental things apply: the case of Dehalococcoides ethenogenes

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