Laboratory for Environmental Microbiology and Geochemistry @ uOttawa

Nous étudions la manière dont les microbes affectent la mobilité et la toxicité des contaminants et développons des outils moléculaires afin de suivre ces transformations dans l’environnement

We study how microbes alter the mobility and toxicity of contaminants and develop molecular tools to track these transformations in the environment
Alexandre Poulain

Professeur adjoint / Assistant Professor
Biologie et Science de l’Environnement, Faculté des Sciences
Biology and Environmental Science, Faculty of Science
Centre for Research on Environmental Microbiology (CREM), Faculty of Medicine


B.Sc., 2001, Univ. Angers, France
M.Sc., 2003, INRS, Québec, Canada
Ph.D., 2007, Université de Montréal, Canada
NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow, 2007-2009,  Massachusetts Institute of Technology , USA

Bureau / Office
Département de biologie / Biology Department
Université d’Ottawa / University of Ottawa
30 Marie Curie - Gendron - Office 268
Ottawa, ON, K1N 6N5 Canada

tel (office). (1) 613-562-5800 ext. 2373
tel (lab). (1) 613-562-5800 ext. 6223
fax. (1) 613-562-5486
apoulain@uottawa.ca

Express Delivery Shipping Address:
Dr. Alexandre Poulain
Biology University of Ottawa
130 Louis Pasteur - Room 023
Ottawa, ON, K1N 6N5 Canada
Phone number (for delivery only):
613-562-5800 x6506


Funding and Partners
Financement et partenaires

Tune up your science!

12.08.11. Dima successfully defended his MSc thesis: "Ancient or extant biogenic methane production? Archaeal and bacterial community structure of deep subsurface sedimentary rock samples from the Michigan Basin, Ontario."
Maggie successfuly presented her work: "Diversity of methanogens and mcrA genes as a function of depth in Arctic lake and wetland sediments using mRNA based techniques".

10.07.11. Welcome to Émile and Colm.

08.05.2011. Alex interviewed by Rachel Gaulin for the radio show "Le monde selon Mathieu" sur Radio-Canada. Click on the link "Les chercheurs" for the audio stream.

07.20.11. Hardeep, Julien and Felix are in the field for three weeks for our project aiming at developing novel biomarkers of ecotoxicity using microbes.

06.14.11. Notre projet "Les méthodes traditionnelles de la chimie analytique nous fournissent-elles une perspective biologiquement pertinente de la spéciation des espèces mercurielles à fort potentiel contaminant dans l’environnement Arctique ?" est financé par le Fond France-Canada pour la Recherche de l'ambassade de France au Canada. Ce projet est mené conjointement avec Aurélien Dommergue du LGGE à Genoble.

06.01.11. It's not a microbe but certainly as exciting as one; Subterranean worms from hell found 1.3 km below the earth surface.

05.09.11. Shannon is now competing at the National Biotalent Challenge. Good luck! UPDATE: Shannon won 3rd place at National!

05.01.11. Welcome to Maggie, an NSERC undergraduate student from the Environmental Science program. Maggie aims at characterizing the distribution and structure composition of methanogens in arctic lake and wetland sediments using methyl-coenzymeA reductase transcripts (mRNA) analyses.

04.21.11. Bacteria divide people into three types. After the four blood types, we may have a new way to classify humanity: by bacteria. This study was published this week in Nature and discussed in the New York Times.

Shannon won the best oral presentation, second plasce overall and a full time studenship at the Insitute for Biological Sciences at National Research Council of Canada (NRC) at the 2011 regional science competition of the sanofi-aventis Biotalent Challenge. Congratulations Shannon!

04.20.11. A new study shows some of the impact of agriculture on bacterial communities and greenhouse gases and how methanotroph diversity correlates with methane flux. This work is published in the ISME Journal.

04.19.11. Shannon defended her research project "The potential of Zambian fermented food products to provide novel antibiotics" at the Sanofi-aventis BioTalent Challenge

02.12.10. Arsenic-based life? A provoking paper published in Science by Wolfe-Simon et al. and a NY times article summarizing critics to their findings.

04.11.10. After successfully defending her thesis, Sarah submitted the final copy of her MSc thesis. Congrats!

10.22.10. Intellectual Impairment in School-Age Children Exposed to Manganese from Drinking Water. High concentrations of the metal manganese (Mn) in drinking water have a direct impact on the IQ of children, according to a new study from Quebec. This paper raises further questions on the cycle of Mn, a redox active metal. in the environment.

10.21.10. Microbial characterization of a subzero, hypersaline methane seep in the Canadian High Arctic. Published in the ISME Journal, and using molecular techniques, this paper characterizes the microbiology of a a terrestrial methane seep in a cryo-environment in the Canadian high Arctic.

09.01.10. Welcome to Cristian and Julien who join the lab as honors students.

08.25.10. Congratulations to Xavier and Michelle who successfully extracted messenger RNA from environmental samples.

08.15.10. Back from successful Arctic trip

07.16.10. How microbes define us, a fascinating perspective of the importance of bacteria on our health.

07.13.10. Welcome to Valérie, an engineering student from UTC in France specializing in biotechnologies. Her goal is to develop novel microbial biosensors.

07.02.10. An interesting introduction to the potential of using naturally occurring microbes for remediation purposes in the context of the oil spill in the gulf of mexico.

05.01.10. Welcome to Xavier and Jeffrey who join the lab as summer students.

03.10.10. Geomicrobiology: Sediment reactions defy dogma in the journal Nature; a paper by Nielsen et al. about electric currents that couple spatially separated biogeochemical processes in marine sediments.

03.10.10. From the Arctic to the Tropics. Welcome to Dr. Sijmen Schoustra as a postdoctoral fellow. Sijmen’s research will be supported by a grant from the Research and Development Program from the University of Ottawa to look at the Microbial Ecology of fermented products from Zambia, Africa. Our goal is to gain insights into strategies used by microbes to resist environmental perturbations.

03.03.10. Utilization of Compound Specific Isotope Analyses for elucidating microbial pathways of pesticides degradation. Penning et al. in ES&T.

02.19.10. Feasting on Minerals by Dianne Newman; bacteria and archaea that can eat metals. from Perspectives in the magazine Science.

02.11.10. This week in ES&T: Organoarsenic compounds are natural constituents of Sashimi Tuna and Agricultural wetlands as potential hotspots for Hg bioaccumulation

02.10.10. Contamination of Burbot in the Mackenzie Delta in the Globe and Mail.

02.10.10. Biogeochemical Redox Processes special issue in Environmental Science and Technology. Two papers of interest: Redox processes and contaminants dynamics and Anaerobic microbial physiology and the role of H2 as a electron donor

02.09.10. The Mercury Lab is now proficient for inorganic and total mercury analyses in soil/sediment and in water with a CALA accreditation (Canadian Association for Laboratory Accreditation Inc.). Congratulations to Emmanuel for achieving this level of quality in trace metal analyses.

02.05.10. Michelle will present the first data from the lab at the Environmental Science and Engineering Conference in Gananoque, ON.

02.01.10. The case of missing Hg; a paper in Canadian Geographic about Hg in the Arctic

02.01.10. The microbiology of Antarctic Dry Valley soils in Nature Reviews Microbiology

02.01.10. Welcome to Phil who joins the lab as a research assistant

01.01.10. Welcome to Hardeep who joins the lab as a graduate student and to Emily a COOP undergraduate student