Prof Romano Mwirichia is a microbial Ecologist with over 10 years’ work experience in the area of Environmental Microbiology. The focus of his research is on the Microbial diversity and function of diverse groups of microorganisms from the various microbiome. His research group focuses on three thematic areas, Microbial ecology of extremophiles here we explore the diversity of extremophilic bacteria from the Kenyan soda lakes with a pH of above 9, salt from 2-30, and temperatures up to 98. We are interested in diversity but also the function of isolates from these environments for biocontrol and bioactive metabolites. In this line, we are collaborating with Prof Rolf Daniel, University of Goettingen. We have an impressive collection of isolates (Bacteria, fungi, and cyanobacteria). Biocontrol agents from diverse environments Here we isolate bacteria from soil, termite mounds, termite guts, soda lakes and screen them against a battery of plant pathogens that we also isolated from the environment. Prof Romano Mwirichia has a number of highly active isolates against an array of fungal pathogens. A third nascent line is natural product discovery - Here we screen isolates of interest for secondary metabolites. However, this is just beginning to pick up in collaboration with the Department of Chemistry.
