A tribute to Marvin Bryant - from an insignificant postdoc of many generations apart

I was busy preparing some lecture material this past one week. And in several of the slides, I have to talk about the concept of syntrophy. Syntrophy refers to a form of synergism, in which 2 or more microorganisms cooperate to degrade a substrate that one could not be able to do so by itself, typically because of energetic limitations. When I was doing my PhD, I wasn't particularly interested in anaerobic fermentations. And therefore, it didn't occur to me that the concept of syntrophy, in particular interspecies hydrogen transfer, is a very important concept. It was only now that I have started cultivating the anaerobes, as well as looking at the functionality of anaerobic gut microbiota, that I learnt so (I am a slow learner). While I was preparing the lecture slides, I learnt that the interspecies hydrogen transfer concept that was talked about in the engineering context actually originated from the rumen ecosystem. What was particularly surreal is that the discoverer was Marvin Bryant, and he was once the main PI of the lab that I am currently in. I was trying to imagine if those things that he touched or operated in the past would be the same as those that I am working on right now. Not surprising, considering that a lot of the stuff in my current lab date back to the 1980s. In fact, I do see some old chemicals that seemed to be marked by him. Sometimes, I thought he might be around in the lab. That's creepy, I know. But I think if I can get some of his intelligence, I would be honored to have him oversee my experiments.