Why are you are conducting research on Deinococcus radiodurans?
Deinococcus radiodurans, as the name implies, is a radiation-resistant [bacterium]. It’s the most radiation-resistant organism that we know, and in fact it’s even in the Guinness Book of World Records reflecting that. If you expose Deinococcus radiodurans cells to gamma radiation, they don’t die very rapidly, and if you compare that to how other organisms die in response to gamma radiation Deinococcus radioduran cells survive the best. [After gamma radiation], bacteria cells like E. coli will die very rapidly; human cells will also die very rapidly. How was this unique organism discovered? Deinococcus radiodurans, which used to be known as Micrococcus radiodurans, was not discovered for a long time in microbiology. People were trying to culture organisms out of soil, out of the ocean, out of plants. No one had found Deinococcus radiodurans or anything like Deinococcus until the ’50s when the government started to use gamma radiation to sterilize [canned] meat. When they gamma radiated
