Michael McInerney

Background

About Michael McInerney

In 1981, I joined the faculty of the University of Oklahoma and established externally funded and internationally renown programs in syntrophy, subsurface microbiology, petroleum microbiology and microbial oil recovery. My laboratory was the first to obtain pure cultures of syntrophic bacteria and to study their biochemistry. More recently, I lead an international team to study the genomics of organisms capable of syntrophic metabolism. In collaboration with colleagues in petroleum engineering, my laboratory developed the methodologies to study microbial oil recovery and showed that 1) bacteria grow through rock at rapid rates, 2) in situ growth of bacteria selectively reduces permeability, 3) nitrate and/or nitrite addition prevents sulfide accumulation, 4) low concentrations of biosurfactants mobilize large amounts of entrapped oil, and 5) inoculation of oil fields is possible. In collaboration with my colleagues, Dr. Ralph Tanner and Dr. Robert Gunsalus, we are studying hydrogen production from renewable resources. We have a novel isolate that make very large amounts of hydrogen gas from sugar and waste materials. Specialties: Anaerobic microbiology including syntrophy, methanogenesis, biohydrogen production. Bioremediation, subsurface microbiology, and petroleum microbiology.