Professor Rudolf K. Thauer, founding director of Max Planck Institute of Terrestrial Microbiology in Germany was invited to attend the Symposium on Anaerobic Microorganism Metabolism held by QIBEBT, and to attend QIBEBT International Expert Seminar, on 25-27 May.

On the Symposium, the speakers from different research institute and universities presented scientific talks and had deep discussion in the field of extreme environmental microbial isolation, identification and cultivation; anaerobic metabolic pathway analysis.

The participants were from Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Microbiology, Soil Science, Tianjin industrial biotechnology, Chengdu Institute of Biology, China Agricultural University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Nanjing University, and Central China Normal University.

On International Expert Seminar, Prof. Thauer gave a lecture titled "Flavin-Based Electron Bifurcation in Anaerobic Bacteria and Archaea: A Novel Mechanism of Energy Coupling". He introduced a new mechanism of energy coupling which was recently discovered in anaerobic bacteria and archaea. The process called flavin-based electron bifurcation (FBEB) can be regarded as a third mode of energy conservation in addition to substrate level phosphorylation (SLP) and electron transport phosphorylation (ETP). This reaction will take an important role to rationally construct microbe for biofuel and chemicals production.

After the Seminar, Prof. Thauer hosted a talk with QIBEBT postgraduate students. He discussed and advised to the students about the research and life.

During the visit, Professor LIU Huizhou, the director general of the QIBEBT, attended the Seminar and received Prof. Thauer. They reached consensus on collaborative research fields and postgraduates training programs.