Ximena Druar to Present on Next Generation Sequencing at SMART Remediation

SiREM will be at the SMART Remediation conferences in Toronto and Ottawa. Come visit our booths at both events and listen to our talk in Ottawa.

Ximena Druar (Ontario) will present “Unlocking Environmental Insights: Next Generation Sequencing Applications in Groundwater Remediation, Bioaugmentation, and eDNA Analysis” at the Ottawa event, which will be held at the Ottawa Conference and Event Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, at 9:00 a.m. EST on February 9, 2024. In addition, Brent Pautler, PhD, and Corey Scales (Ontario) will attend at the Toronto event, which will be held at Lionhead Golf Club & Conference Centre in Toronto, Ontario, on January 25, 2024.

Ximena joined SiREM in 2002 as one of SiREM’s first employees and now serves as the Genetic Testing Supervisor. In this role, she oversees and coordinates the day-to-day work for Gene-Trac® testing. Her work includes managing deployment of over 60 tests and next generation sequencing, as well as supervising laboratory technicians and assistants. In addition, Ximena is a client liaison and approves and issues reports, proposals, and invoices.

Smart Methods in Advanced Remediation Technologies (SMART) is a series of technical learning seminars for environmental professionals. Their goal is to bring the North American environmental community together to enhance our collective understanding of cutting-edge characterization and remediation technologies.

Abstract

Next generation sequencing (NGS) is a technology that allows for rapid DNA sequencing of full genomes or specific targeted regions. This presentation will highlight how NGS can be used to provide environmentally relevant information for enhanced in situ groundwater remediation, characterization of microbial cultures used in bioaugmentation, and characterization of water associated nonmicrobial fauna using eDNA approaches.

Characterization of microbial communities in groundwater for in situ groundwater remediation is routinely performed with NGS. Common uses include determining the potential for natural attenuation and assessing the need for, and impacts of, enhanced bioremediation. Examples of NGS data for chlorinated solvent and hydrocarbon contaminated sites will be provided to demonstrate how NGS enhanced understanding of bioremediation processes and the subsurface conditions.

NGS approaches can also be used to characterize composition and stability of beneficial microbial bioaugmentation cultures, such as the KB-1 and DGG Plus bioaugmentation cultures used in groundwater remediation. One specific use of NGS is to screen cultures against a database of known pathogens. This is something SiREM does early on in culture development, using NGS paired with a custom pathogen screening tool, to ensure bioaugmentation cultures are free of harmful pathogens before injection into the subsurface.

NGS can also be used to characterize aquatic flora and fauna through environmental “eDNA” analysis methods. These methods can also be used to screen sites for the presence of fish, amphibians, aquatic insects, and even birds and mammals associated with aquatic systems. These eDNA methods are a cost-effective approach to screen for endangered or invasive species and to assess the overall health of ecosystems. A preliminary study of aquatic fauna profiles at six locations in Ontario and in California including lakes, swamps, creeks, and estuarian locations was conducted and results indicated a wide range of biota that were consistent with the sampling locations.

Recent years have seen rapid reductions in the cost and increased use of NGS in environmental applications. This presentation will present the use of NGS in multiple distinct scenarios, which represent the proverbial tip of the iceberg in terms of potential uses of this powerful technology in environmental remediation and monitoring. Overall, there are numerous applications where high-throughput sequencing technology can allow stakeholders to gain better understandings of the organisms living in or interacting with a site throughout the characterization and remediation process.