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Alfred Spormann - Professor

Office: James H. Clark, E-250
Phone: (650) 723-3668
FAX: (650) 724-4927
E-Mail: spormann@stanford.edu
Admin. Associate: Vannina Champenois, (650) 724-9691: Website:Alfred Spormann Laboratory

Highest Degree

Dr. rer. nat., 1989 Philipps-University, Marburg, Germany
Diplom, 1985 Philipps-University, Marburg, Germany

Major Honors and Awards

2003 Otto Moensted Visiting Professor, Danish Technical University, Lyngby, DK
2000-02 Charles Lee Powell Foundation Research Award
1998 National Science Foundation CAREER Award
Feb. 1997 Visiting Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Biological Process Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
1995 Terman Fellowship Award
1990 - 1992 Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Postdoctoral Fellowship
1986 Planetary Biology Internship Fellowship, NASA Life Sciences (Marine Biological Laboratory)

Research interests:

Our overall research is directed to understand, on a fundamental level, molecular processes in microbes that are important for environmental as well as medical processes.

1) Molecular interactions of microbes in complex environments

Most microbes that exist in nature or in association with hosts live in surface-associated communities, often referred to as biofilms. Biofilms play critical roles in water clean-up and bioremediation processes but are also of concern in medical implant-associated and oral diseases. The fundamental mechanism(s) how microbes adhere to a surface and how to excise and detach from a biofilm are largely unknown. In a combined genetic and physiological approach we investigate the molecular machinery that controls biofilm stability. This includes elucidating the actual molecular mechanism of how cells stick to a biofilm, as well as the regulation of such machinery. Results from these studies have implications of how to control biofilm-related diseases and environmental processes.

2) Cellular level of c-di-GMP signaling

We discovered in our biofilm research that the stability of biofilms is controlled by a novel intracellular second messenger molecule, cyclic-di-GMP. Besides affecting biofilm formation, other aspects of microbial physiology such as motility, virulence, and also metabolic processes, are controlled by c-di-GMP in response to environmental signals. c-di-GMP may function on the allosteric but also on a transcriptional level. Moreover, analyzes of microbial genomes revealed the presence of dozens of diguanylate cyclase, catalyzing the synthesis of c-di-GMP from 2 GTP, as well as c-di-GMP hydrolyzing phosphodiesterases in genomes of microbes that exist in fluctuating environments. We seek to understand the molecular basis of c-di-GMP signaling (sensing the environment, signal transduction, control of activity of effector molecules), as well as the molecular logic of signal integration using a genome level approach. In a combination of genetic, biochemical, and physiological approaches, we are dissecting the circuitry of c-di-GMP signaling in Shewanella oneidensis and Vibrio cholerae.

3) Molecular evolution of new genetic traits in microbes

We have found that genetic variants rapidly arise in biofilm environments, thereby, contributing to the functional diversification in such environments. However, the molecular causes and consequences of such rapid evolution are unclear. Making use of the power of microbial evolution (rapid generation time and large population size), we are conducting studies on the molecular evolution of new genetic traits in response to specific selective pressures. In an extension of this approach, we are also pursuing the experimental evolution of microbial interactions, specifically the evolution of mutualism. We also explore how experimental evolution can be used as a molecular engineering tool to evolve industrially useful properties in microbes.

4) Microbial reductive dehalogenation

Chloroethenes, such as PCE and TCE, are the most prevalent groundwater contaminants in the U.S. and the developed countries. Large scale remediation of contaminated aquifers relies largely on the activity of a group of unusual microbes (Dehalococcoides sp.) that derive energy from reductive dehalogenation, thereby, using the chlorinated

Several Recent Publications

1. Muller J, Miller MC, Nielsen AT, Schoolnik GK, Spormann AM: vpsA- and luxO-independent biofilms of Vibrio cholerae. FEMS Microbiol Lett. 2007 Oct; 275(2):199-206.

2. McMurdie PJ, Behrens SF, Holmes S, Spormann AM: Unusual codon bias in vinyl chloride reductase genes of Dehalococcoides species. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2007 Apr; 73(8):2744-7.

3. Meshulam-Simon G, Behrens S, Choo AD, Spormann AM: Hydrogen metabolism in Shewanella oneidensis MR-1. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2007 Feb; 73(4):1153-65

4. Shi J, Romero PR, Schoolnik GK, Spormann AM, Karp PD: Evidence supporting predicted metabolic pathways for Vibrio cholerae: gene expression data and clinical tests. Nucleic Acids Res. 2006 May 8; 34(8):2438-44. Print 2006.

5. Thormann KM, Duttler S, Saville RM, Hyodo M, Shukla S, Hayakawa Y, Spormann AM: Control of formation and cellular detachment from Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 biofilms by cyclic di-GMP. J Bacteriol. 2006 Apr; 188(7):2681-91.

6. Mrazek J, Spormann AM, Karlin S: Genomic comparisons among gamma-proteobacteria. Environ Microbiol. 2006 Feb; 8(2):273-88.

7. Thormann KM, Saville RM, Shukla S, Spormann AM: Induction of rapid detachment in Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 biofilms. J Bacteriol. 2005 Feb; 187(3):1014-21.

8. Entcheva-Dimitrov P, Spormann AM: Dynamics and control of biofilms of the oligotrophic bacterium Caulobacter crescentus. J Bacteriol. 2004 Dec; 186(24):8254-66.

9. Thormann KM, Saville RM, Shukla S, Pelletier DA, Spormann AM: Initial Phases of biofilm formation in Shewanella oneidensis MR-1. J Bacteriol. 2004 Dec; 186(23):8096-104.

10. Cupples AM, Spormann AM, McCarty PL: Comparative evaluation of chloroethene dechlorination to ethene by Dehalococcoides-like microorganisms.

Environ Sci Technol. 2004 Sep 15; 38(18):4768-74.

11. Muller JA, Rosner BM, Von Abendroth G, Meshulam-Simon G, McCarty PL, Spormann AM: Molecular identification of the catabolic vinyl chloride reductase from Dehalococcoides sp. strain VS and its environmental distribution. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2004 Aug; 70(8):4880-8.

12. Cupples AM, Spormann AM, McCarty: PLVinyl chloride and cis-dichloroethene dechlorination kinetics and microorganism growth under substrate limiting conditions Environ Sci Technol. 2004. 38(4):1102-7.

13. Ward MJ, Fu QS, Rhoads KR, Yeung CH, Spormann AM, Criddle CS. 2003: A derivative of the menaquinone precursor 1,4-dihydroxy-2-naphthoate is involved in the reductive transformation of carbon tetrachloride by aerobically grown Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 Appl Microbiol Biotechnol.2004 63(5):571-7

14. Templeton AS, Spormann AM, Brown GE Jr. 2003: Speciation of Pb(II) sorbed by Burkholderia cepacia/goethite composites. ?Environ Sci Technol.37(10):2166-72.

15. Cupples AM, Spormann AM, McCarty PL 2003: Growth of a Dehalococcoides-like Microorganism on Vinyl Chloride and cis-Dichloroethene as Electron Acceptors as Determined by Competitive PCR. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 69: 953-9.

16. Templeton AS, Trainor TP, Spormann AM, Newville M, Sutton SR, Dohnalkova A, Gorby Y, Brown, GE Jr. 2003: Sorption versus Biomineralization of Pb(II) within Burkholderia cepacia Biofilms. Environ. Sci. & Technol. 37(2):300-7

17. Templeton AS, Trainor TP, Traina SJ, Brown, GE Jr. 2001: Pb(II) Distribution at Biofilm-Metal Oxide Interfaces. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 98 21 11897-11902.

18. Achong, GR, Rodriguez A, Spormann AM 2001:Benzylsuccinate Synthase of Azoarcus sp. Strain T: Cloning, Sequencing, Transcriptional Organization, and Its Role in Anaerobic Toluene and m-Xylene Mineralization. J. Bacteriol. 2001.183 23:6763-6770.

19. Johnson HA, Pelletier, DA, Spormann AM 2001: Isolation and Purification of Anaerobic Ethylbenzene Dehydrogenase, a Novel Mo-Fe-S Enzyme. ?J. Bacteriol.;183 4536-4542.

20. Krieger CJ, Roseboom W, Albracht SP, Spormann AM 2001: ?A Stable Organic Free Radical in Anaerobic Benzylsuccinate Synthase in Azoarcus sp. StrainT. J Biol Chemistry 276: 12924-12927.

Current Students

Sebastian Behrens, Postdoctoral fellow

Carmen Cordova, Ph.D. student

Joey McMurdie, Ph.D. student

Jana Miller, Ph.D. student

Wing-On, Ng, Postdoctoral fellow

Shauna Puhl, Ph.D. student

Renee Saville, Ph.D. student

Soni Shukla, Research Associate

Hsin-I Wu, Ph.D. student

Josephine Yu, Research associate