University of Toronto’s Dr. Elizabeth Edwards
January 19, 2024
The School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences hosted a Distinguished Lecture by Dr. Elizabeth Edwards as part of her AEESP Spring ’24 Distinguished Lecture tour, along with UNC-Charlotte, University of South Carolina, Georgia Tech, and Auburn. Her seminar was titled “Adventures in Anaerobic Bioremediation.” The seminar was held at the Watt Family Innovation Center on January 19, 2024 with a reception following in the Watt Center atrium.
Dr. Edwards has achieved international recognition for her pioneering research on anaerobic bioremediation of recalcitrant pollutants and the application of genomic technologies to discover new functions in anaerobic microbial communities. Over the past 25+ years, her research team has discovered and characterized novel microbial processes that affect the fate of pollutants in the environment. Professor Edwards also developed a microbial culture called KB-1, dominated by unusual organohalide-respiring bacteria, which proved to be an effective low-cost solution for cleaning up industrial sites contaminated by chlorinated solvents. The KB-1 consortium is now widely used commercially around the world, sold via SiREM, a spin-off company based on her research founded in 2002. Edwards is also co-founder (2014) of Savant Technical Consulting, which provides biotechnology, regulatory and life cycle assessment analysis and advice.
At University of Toronto, Dr. Edwards oversees two multi-disciplinary research networks: BioZone, which includes nine principal investigators from across U of T Engineering, and the Industrial Biocatalysis Network, which involves researchers from U of T, the University of British Columbia, Concordia University and several industry partners. Both networks envision using microorganisms to address a variety of challenges, from renewable plastics to less expensive pharmaceuticals to energy-from-waste. She is jointly appointed in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry and the Department of Cell and Systems Biology at the University of Toronto.
