Blog: When life sciences meet innovation, the world can heal itself

SiREM: When life sciences meet innovation, the world can heal itself

SiREM’s groundbreaking work in Ontario for the world

The marvels of biotechnology are what drive the ground-breaking bioremediation work being done at Guelph-based company SiREM.

You’re probably familiar with bacterial cultures in dairy products like yogurt that give them their trademark taste, smell and texture. SiREM, and their partners at the University of Toronto and the Federated Co-operatives Limited (FCL), have been developing and scaling up bacterial cultures of their own to help various industries clean up chemicals left over from their operations in a safer way that is better for the planet.

SiREM: When life sciences meet innovation, the world can heal itself

The idea is to do away with the destructive “dig-and-dump” method of dealing with contaminated soil and use SiREM’s bioaugmented bacterial cultures instead. Injecting their sustainably produced microbes into groundwater to quickly and naturally break down toxic substances is a far more environmentally friendly and efficient way to clean-up common contaminants in the oil and gas sectors.

Ontario Genomics started supporting this exciting work back in 2016 with a $1 million in funding through the Genomic Applications Partnership Program (GAPP), which according to SiREM’s principal scientist, Sandra Dworatzek, has boosted their success.

Sandra Dworatzek, Senior Scientist at SiREM

Their bioaugmentation cultures have received approval for use by Environment Canada and Health Canada and are currently being used at 15 sites across North America on a wide range of chemicals including chlorinated solvents, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes.

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