The 4th Global COE lecture series was held on 9th August, 2010 in the meeting room of the Science Research Building, Ehime University. The invited speaker was Dr. Pathmalal M. Manage. It was really an interesting topic for us, as use of microbes to solve environmental pollution is an alternative novel approach. At the beginning of the lecture, Dr. Pathmalal explained the current world environmental issues. He highlighted eutrophication and water pollution as the major environmental issues. These two are his major field of specialization. He pointed out some health scenario so far recorded in the world due to contamination caused by cyanobacteria in drinking and recreational water bodies.  

Next he explained physical and chemical control strategies, which are now being practiced to control algal blooms. He explained the use of cavitation treatment, an innovative method, to suppress phytoplankton biomass as a first step for physical control method, which he did during his postgraduate study at Ehime University.

Dr. Pathmalal explained about biological control of cyanobacteria as a potential short term measure to reduce or prevent the build up of nuisance algal populations. He talked also about his research experience in the field and laboratory studies on cyanophages, algicidal bacteria and protozoa as algicidal agents to control nuisance cyanobacteria. Further, grazing effect of protozoan with special emphasis of ciliates, rizopods and flagellates and zooplankton were explained by him. He suggested that the use of those heterotrophes as biological control agents in lakes and reservoir management should be regarded as just one of a number of available control measures, which is a part of an integrated management policy.

 Final part of the lecture topic was “Putting microbes to work”. In this part he mainly talked about toxins from cynobacteria, their potential health effects and his novel finding to remove cyanotoxin- microcystin by using bacteria. He also mentioned that WHO has established a guideline of 1µg l^-1 as the maximum concentration of microcystin-LR in drinking water supplies and therefore, providing safe drinking water is a global challenge due to the occurrence of toxic cyanobacterial blooms, which pose a significant hazard. Based on his work in collaboration with Phytotoxin laboratory in the Robert Gorden University, UK he was able to isolate and identify three novel bacterial species; Arthrobacter spp., Brevibacterium sp. and Rhodococcus sp. as the three world first records of microcystin-degraders that do not belong to Proteobacteria.

This special lecture series provided us a great opportunity to learn how we can utilize our research findings to provide solutions to real world problems. Dr. Pathmalal’s lecture, based on his experience and achievements gave a great stimulation to all the young scientists and researchers who have attended. In future, we have to face the consequences of the current environmental issues discussed elaborately during this lecture. Thus, I strongly feel that we have to stand together for using our knowledge and experience to solve such problems and to keep our environment green forever. Many questions were asked by the participants showing their interest on different disciplines of the lecture and a fruitful discussion ensued.