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Jetten – professor of Ecological Microbiology at Radboud University Nijmegen and professor by special appointment of Environmental Microbiology at Delft University of Technology – was one of the first to entice these bacteria to grow and reveal their secrets down to most detailed genetic and molecular level. And that resulted in some surprising discoveries. For example, he found that anammox bacteria have a compartmentalised cell architecture, which is very unusual for micro-organisms. Moreover, these bacteria generate the explosive compound hydrazine – which is also used as a rocket fuel – for their own metabolism. The ‘Twente canal bacterium’ (Candidatus Methylomirabilis oxyfera) which can oxidise methane aerobically (‘like lighting a gas flame underwater’) lives in oxygen-free conditions, but makes oxygen itself (oxygenic). It was previously unknown that bacteria could do this.
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