Unknown 0:00
Welcome to the ash cloud, I'm Ash Sweeting. Today we are joined by Professor rod Mackey, adapt microbial ecologist from the University of Illinois. Rod is leading an international research team pursuing a different approach to mitigating livestock methane. Rather than just studying methane in isolation. The team is looking at the bio molecular mechanisms that lead to the precursors of methane to open up broader opportunities for intervention. The team has recently been awarded a $2.5 million grant from the foundation for food and agricultural research through the greener cattle initiative. Most
Unknown 0:40
of the work that's been done, tries to study that just in isolation in terms of methane production only, but if you dig into the fundamental reasons behind methane production, that's based on two important fluxes. One is hydrogen production, and the other one is hydrogen utilization. And so our study is really really mechanistic. It's not a large hertz study, but it looks into small animals that are based on this low and high methane emitting phenotype. So it's critical, it's really important to understand that. So I think the other thing that people don't really understand is if you inhibit methanogenesis What are you going to do with the hydrogen that's, that's being that accumulates next?
Unknown 1:26
This approach can benefit both farmers and the climate what
Unknown 1:30
we'd like to be able to do is to redirect that hydrogen from being a waste of energy. So currently, that that amounts to between five and 12% of the gross energy and the DoD is released as methane. If we can recapture some of that in more useful in products of fermentation, things like propionate and butyrate. Those would be extremely beneficial. And we don't want to waste that oxygen. It's a very good energy source, and we can't afford to blow that off. If that happens, it'll be like a win win situation. We'll have contributed to mitigating methane emissions. But we've also captured that that 100 redirected and put them into useful in products that in the end, if that happens, farmers won't have any problem in terms of accepting those sorts of technologies.
Unknown 2:19
Understanding the details is critical. A lot of that
Unknown 2:23
sequencing that's done with short read technology. And I don't think that's good enough, because it doesn't resolve it down to strain level. And when we talking about anything that relates to rumen, fermentation or, or gut fermentation, it's all about strain variation. And that's all important. So it's not stopped the species.
Unknown 2:44
The team has a history of success. This
Unknown 2:47
greener cattle Initiative Grant, it didn't just happen. It was years in the making. And so I've always been interested in comparisons between sad the Roman system and the human gut, the human color. But I started working with the people in New Zealand grand backward and Sinead lay here, and we had two very nice publications in 2022 that are still kind of fundamental and led to the development of this grant. And it was all about how to production and how to do utilization, and understanding those fundamental things that are happening.
Unknown 3:25
There is still a lot of work to do. All
Unknown 3:29
these these animals always low and I maintain a minute or if you change the dark does that shift, and those things haven't really been done, because we don't really look at that sort of thing. So we need a lot more money. And I think we need to be able to, to work in a lot of countries where there are large numbers of of cattle, and so that are like India and Brazil. Those are where most of the animals are. Most of those an extensive systems abroad
Unknown 3:56
approach is essential. But we
Unknown 3:59
need, you know, much better alternatives. And that's why there's breeding strategies, other things that may you know, help but understanding what trays to to breed for that's more likely to come from this sort of study.
Unknown 4:21
Rod, thank you very much for joining me today.
Unknown 4:23
Well, it's an absolute pleasure.
Unknown 4:26
So to start with, how does the approach of the team you're leading to mitigating livestock, methane differ from other approaches? And why is that important? Yeah.
Unknown 4:40
Okay, so that's really a very important question. So people have known about methane production in the rumen for ever since the human animal digestive physiology was was studied. And so there's nothing new about methane production. And I think that most of the work that's been done, tries to study that just in isolation in terms of methane production only. But if you dig into the fundamental reasons behind methane production, that's based on two important fluxes. One is hydrogen production, and the other one is hydrogen utilization. And it turns out that the best way of disposing of reducing equivalents in the rumen system is to make methane and certain damages are really, really effective in reducing co2 with hydrogen. And so in the rumen situation, most of the methane comes from this hydrogen or trophic pathway methanogenesis there's some evidence that maybe there's another pathway that my father trophic pathway, but the quantitative evidence for that is lacking. And so I think that most studies don't take into account how to do production and how to utilization and the balance the fluxes of these important critical intermediates in the system. And so most studies to date, they use large animal studies with inhibitors and just don't really dig into those fundamental mechanisms, what's happening in the black box, or they use just mixed up approaches, sequencing, and that's, it's a good start, but that's not the answer. That's the beginning. And so our study is really, really mechanistic. It's not a large herd study, but it looks into small animals that are based on this low and high methane emitting phenotype, and uses that as a basis to try and understand his mechanisms for hydrogen production and hydrogen utilization. So it's critical, it's really important to understand that. So I think the other thing that people don't really understand is if you inhibit methanogenesis What are you going to do with the hydrogen that's, that's being that accumulates next? There's, there's something in our favor. And that is that hydrogen solubility is is very, very low, and so you soon reach like a super saturation. And that's why we start to see hydrogen being emitted belched out of the room and Europe Titan. And so that's a loss of energy. And so our plan is to look at those fluxes of not only hydrogen, but formate, another into important intermediate in terms of how to information, things like lactate succinate other intermediates that are turning over the rumen and how they might influence these fluxes direction of hydrogen flow. So I think in the end, what we'd like to be able to do is to redirect that hydrogen from being a waste of energy. So currently that they're the master between five and 12% of the gross energy in the diet is released as methane. If we can recapture some of that in more useful in products of fermentation, things like propionate and butyrate. Those would be extremely beneficial and we don't want to waste that oxygen. It's a very good energy source, and we can't afford to blow that off. If that happens, it'll be like a win win situation. We'll have contributed to mitigating methane emissions. But we'll also have captured that that hydrogen redirected and put them into useful end products that in the end if that happens, farmers won't have any problem in terms of accepting those sorts of technologies. So I think we've lost sight of some of the things that are happening in between feeding inhibit in the mouth, and ruin fermentation, and methane emissions and our job is to find out what's going on inside this really complex system. The rumen. And of course, you know, the other side of that is that 90 90% of methane emissions from ruminant animals come from enteric fermentation, and it's thought from from manure, so manure as part of the part of it, but it's not a major part. Once we bring in other greenhouse gases, then we start to have to think more about the protein side of it. Nitrous oxide emissions, and other very greenhouse gas forming greenhouse gas.
Unknown 9:18
Yeah, I'm gonna break down my understanding that by understanding the actual dynamics or the kinetics of this metabolism in the rumen, you you open up greater opportunities or greater number of intervention points. So it means you got broader areas where you can intervene compared to what is frequently happening nowadays, which is basically people just trying to put a plug in the leak and get rid of the methane. Okay.
Unknown 9:45
Yeah, I think that's that's probably a good way of stating it. So there are many other places to to look at that problem. And so that's why the turnover the flexes, and trying to get this accurate, how to do balance in the system. So apparently, we don't know. There's, there's a part of the budget, that origin balanced budget that's missing. We can't account for it. And so if we can't do that, the chances of being able to sustainably reliably and reproducibly. reduce methane emissions are much lower. So it's it's a really fundamental it's very mechanistic but it's really fundamental.
Unknown 10:29
And, as you said, most 99% of emissions globally come from enteric fermentation. So that's what's going on Nigeria, 90, sorry. And you've also got the fact that the vast majority of grazing of animals are actually grazing be that in small herds in in Asia or Africa, or the pastoral zones of South America and Australia and the ranches here. The breeding ranches of cow calf ranches across North America. Does a better understanding of these dynamics help to find solutions that will work for these grazing animals where they're not handled and fed every day.
Unknown 11:11
Yeah, that's a very important point. And so I think these basic approaches will be pretty very useful. But it's true that many animals in the extensive systems personal systems, you don't see them, you know, maybe once a year, or twice a year. And so feed additives Don't, don't cut it. And that's why there's the stolen extreme interest in trying to get a methane vaccine and to be able to deploy that say, when you bring cattle into to dip for ticks and things like that, then you will be able to vaccinate, but at the moment that that approach has not yielded anything beyond increasing salary, antibodies and increasing in vitro methane but when it comes to in vivo, young mitigation, it's not working. And so there's potentially other targets, but it's still an important part of the whole arsenal that how are we going to reach all these other animals and so for developed countries, and dairy, we see animals you know, two or three times a day, we can easily do it with feed additives, and beef cattle that in feedlot at least, you feed them twice a day. So and that makes it much easier but but we need you know, much better alternatives. And that's why there's breeding strategies, other things that may help but understanding what trays to to to breed for. That's more likely to come from this sort of study. I
Unknown 12:50
know you're very much at the beginning of the journey in this study. And I'm asking you to predict on that to ask you to predict what what what you might see come out of there, but what should be the interventions from the farmer's perspective may look like all the possible ones that may be on the table in a number of years when when it gets to that point of the study. That's
Unknown 13:12
sort of hard to predict, but I think so, you know, on a big scale, everything that relates to just feed efficiency, things that relate to animal health, fewer animals, all of those things are going to make an enormous contribution. So that's not an essential part of our program. But in the end, I think we'll have much better predictors for what to select for how to manage diets, additions to diets, things like that, that that might be useful. And so, you know, just natural plant compounds, things that might be you know, present in the diet of animals that are browsing as well as grazing. When there's a lack of grazing, maybe as you have in in Australia and regions. So there's, there's going to be I don't think there's going to be a single type solution. I think it's going to be on many, many different ways of doing it.
Unknown 14:21
You put together a team that covers the globe, essentially from Europe to Australia, New Zealand, North America, the Middle East, and you need to stretch on and tell me a bit about the team who's in the team and the skills and knowledge and experience they bring to the team.
Unknown 14:43
Yep. So maybe I should just preface that by saying that, you know, this this greener cattle Initiative Grant, it didn't just happen. It was years in the making. And so I've always been interested in comparisons between Saudi Roman system and the human gut, the human color, but I started working with the people in New Zealand grand backward and Sinead Leahy and we had two very nice publications in 2022 that are still kind of fundamental, and lead to the development of this grant. And it was all about how to production and how to do utilization and understanding those fundamental things that are happening. So when I wrote the proposal, I knew that we needed more than just my own expertise, but a lot of other people. And so we're very fortunate to get this, I think, very, very powerful international research team to work on this. And so we divided those into six different research hubs. And so the lead institution, of course, is the University of Illinois, and I'm working with a guy called Josh McCann, who is a professor in ruminant nutrition, and we're a beef cattle seller. And I think, overall, all of the hubs, we are going through sort of a process of trying to work off what's already known about low and high emitting phenotypes, to work with that inocula In in vitro bio reactors, and to establish levels that give us greater increments in dissolved hydrogen concentrations. So those are the critical parameters to measure. So, so that would be research. One, so research have to and those are the people in New Zealand so that's ground network, Balkany, Peter Johnson, and Sinead in in warden and Minister of composition. So she's not directly involved in in this grant. And they have just a wealth of experience. They've got the the flocks of sheep that are high and low methane emitting phenotypes. They have a good collection of methanogens that most other people don't have. And then they're not really going to be working with animals, so it's a bit too expensive for them. And so they're going to be looking more at hydrogenases. And so if you know anything about hydrogen, what's the enzymatic machine that handles those does a hydrogenases and there's this is a proposal that looks at inhibiting hydrogenases of all these different times. And so there's lots of exciting work that could come out of that. So which which potential hydrogenase is a membrane bound a vectorial hydrogenase, that's moving in hydrogen was one that's e flexing hydrogen. What about the electron bifurcating hydrogenase? Is the new discovery in terms of just you know, hydrogen economy balance? So that's, that's you know, a very powerful approach. Then the next team would be the team in Canada. And so they were previously all based in Alberta. So Len, who grew up at University of Alberta, and to McAllister Stephanie green, at Canada in Lethbridge. Linda is now moving to University of British Columbia, and that's also a beef site. So there are a team that have a lot of experience in terms of large herd studies. They've done a lot of fundamental work in three and RP three nitroxide protocol, as well as as far as officers. And so they've already got a huge foundation for doing this work. So we can we can we can interface with that and use it to go on and do much more mechanistic type studies. So to input some of those other fundamental measurements that are not currently there, but need to be made to make a full understanding of the microbiology that they are measuring. So that would be research hub three, research hub for is a European based one they actually two investigators there. So when a Sharon Hughes at Queen's University of Belfast, and her approach is very much to do culture omics, so trying to get that big database of reference isolates that couldn't be just not only to the database, but to understanding growth physiology and then selecting those maybe to make a synthetic driven microbial community and in the end, trying to get genetic systems that make those organisms tractable, in which we can ask the question about which organism which specific pathway, and which specific gene are really responsible for some of these things that we measure and so really, really important. The other person that's in the European team is for Pope at Norwegian University of Life Sciences. And his is very much sort of an unmixed platform. But I think it's a much improved platform. He has a specialization in proteomics, most of us can't really do that. And a proof database that reference database as well as his expertise and you know, advanced omics will be very important. And I can add in there that, for the first time, we suddenly have genomes for rumen ciliated protozoa, they responsible for at least 20 to 30% of the hydrogen that's produced and gets converted to methane, but they've been excluded in all of these previous things because we didn't have a genome. And those reads were annotated. They didn't have a hope. But now they do. And now there's additional output is all genomes that we can use. And so I think we can go back and just reinterpret those sequence databases we have and reassigned you new information to existing databases. And I might just segue in there by saying that a lot of that sequencing that's done with short read technology, and I don't think that's good enough. Because it doesn't resolve it down to strain level. And when we talking about anything that relates to rumen, fermentation or or gut fermentation, it's all about strain variation. And that's all important. So it's not it's not the species and what you know what the new technologies we'll be able to get, get down to that level of resolution, but will need high, you know, long read, high accuracy amplicon sequencing, and so it'll all it'll all shift, costs will be higher, but will all shift towards tech, bio and many AI on top technologies. And you can't compare full length 16 sg to one that three or 400 base speeds, there's just not enough information in it. And the same goes for other genes and maybe genomics and meta transcriptomic databases. Okay, so that's, that's all that brings in that that's research for and I guess they'd be mainly sort of a dairy kind of interest. And then the next group would be its disarray, who's in Israel? And that's probably one of the best labs at the moment for doing omics type research on on dairy cattle. So it's another day rehab, and he's very much involved in metabolomics. And then in constructing synthetic microbial communities, one of the problems we've had with synthetic Mike by COVID communities is that's very hard to cultivate cilia and protozoa in our systems, they don't last very long. So we have to be able to redo that and try and promote survivability, obviously on prednisone, these synthetic systems to make it really counted in terms of a study model. Okay, and then the last Research Hub is from Australia. So that's probably Agni in Australia. And that's piano soulsby don't overcook.
Unknown 23:23
FPV Matias, he is at Davis. And this is very much trying to use a theater John's as probiotics trying to redirect some of that hydrogen and co2 into acetate, they will be more useful in product now, cause that's been tried. Before, and it hasn't been successful. So the citizens don't compete with metabolisms. They have the thresholds are higher, and so they're not as effective. And those surgeons, they do lots of other things. They're not primarily they're not obligate procedures, and so it's easier to make a living doing something else that trying to push co2 and hydrogen into acetate. So it doesn't happen very readily. But the opportunity is, if we have a rumen, in which there's methane mitigation, we're not making as much methane we're elevating the hydrogen, dissolved hydrogen concentrations. Can I see the gem probiotics work? And is it possible that there are some other organisms in there that can help us with these elevated levels of hydrogen, which we must maintain at a low level in order to drive, you know, aerobic fermentation? And I think there's good opportunity. And I think for our proposal, that was the only sort of commercial edition. And so I think it was a good addition. It wasn't part of our original proposal, but they requested that we include that and I was I was happy to do that. So you were instrumental in the early part of the puzzle anyway.
Unknown 24:59
I think you mentioned a lot of technologies in that, while explaining the team. What are this type? of research being possible 510 15 years ago, or the technologies that are being used? You know, things that are on that on that kind of cutting edge side of things?
Unknown 25:23
And I don't think, I don't think 10 to 15 years ago, I don't think we were at this point. I think that I think that what's happened is that there was there was an era when Roman microbiology, we were really in the vanguard we were leading, leading the choice. But that was early on, because we had an anaerobic technique and other people didn't. We're still very good at anaerobic technique. But I think we've fallen off the pace in terms of these other sort of omics technologies. And first of all, the environmental microbiologist came in. But now it's pretty much the human microbiome. And of course, that's a huge amount of money, and it's a really attractive area for people to do research and for young PhDs postdocs to study in that area. So I think that we're we're going to get to that point again, where we'll get that reinvigoration. More people getting back into this this particular field and being able to use these traditional techniques, and much more modern omics technologies that are so computer dependent. And so it involves just a different set of skills that some some, you know more mature scientists, like me don't have that's a word that the strategy's mature it's all guys. Yeah,
Unknown 26:52
well, this is only going to be audio but I'm looking at the color of your hair and my beard. I don't think there's any confusion about which groups we fall into. You mentioned earlier that you know, the big
Unknown 0:00You mentioned earlier that the big, exciting thing about this research is the potential to capture that energy that's in the hydrogen. And you said that the five to 12% of feed energy within the animal are some of that within the animal so that you sold in a feed cost feed use efficiency problem for the farmer as well as addressing the environmental concerns. So that whole Win Win just makes the challenges of adoption much, much more straightforward. In terms of reaching that potential, what's what's needed in terms of funding resources, people with the right experience, you know, very broadly what's what's needed to accelerate this whole process. Unknown 0:52You know, I think a lot so I think you could say, from the beginning, what you need is a lot more money. So it might sound like the Vienna cattle Initiative is a big grant, but it's not as divided amongst all those different research hubs and to have a look even to maintain herds of low and high methane emitting sheep or cattle. It's very expensive and so most people don't want to do that. We can use green cattle in the green feed system, and we can measure them but but to to do studies on these these animals always low and maintain money. Or if you change the dot does that shift, and those things haven't really been done? Because we don't really look at that sort of thing. So we need a lot more money. And I think we need to be able to, to work in a lot of countries where the large numbers of cattle and so that are like India and Brazil, those are where most of the animals are most of those in extensive systems. And so we need to think seriously about how to deploy these technologies, and have really technologies that are relevant and applicable to those sorts of systems. And so that's going to be that's, that's like down the road, but it's something we need to start thinking about now. So with money comes, you know, a lot more interest. And so for people in universities, we don't have a mandate to to do anything. The mandate is to go and get a grant and so you're looking for money constantly. And so I think that it's going to attract a lot more top labs into trying to compete for this funding, and competitions. Good. And so in the end of it, we'll get many more top labs, think about how much money it took to do that. The human gut microbiome studies. It's enormous. I don't think we'll ever get to that level of funding. But we need to get somewhere much, much more than than we have now. So, so that's its funding, then that's the the much much improved like intellectual contributions to try to study and find new ways and chemical engineers know a lot about gas solubilities fluxes dynamics, can we measure hydrogen turnover with new technologies? Yeah, proton NMR and other techniques like that, but we need chemists and other people who have these skills, it might be easy for them, but we need to be able to embrace and capture this type of knowledge. So yeah, better researchers. And then that translates into more PhD students. So funding for PhD students, funding for postdocs who want to go into this area of research. And so that's really, really important. And then there's all the facilities that go with it. animal facilities holding you know, for for those herds of animals. Animal studies are just exhausted. So human studies, but animal studies are very expensive, and that's why it's easier to do like bioreactor type studies, and replicate at the bioreactor stage, instead of having you know, 1000 or 2000 heard of, you know, head of cattle. So, all of those things are going to be really, really important. And I think that I think that people are aware that to get this whole thing moving and you know, rumbling in the right direction. It's going to involve all of those sorts of things. Unknown 4:27Excellent, thank you very much. For all your wisdom and sharing with us what you've Well, yeah, this grant and this exciting team. Before we go, is there anything else that you'd like to add that we hadn't discussed? Well, Unknown 4:41I think we discussed most of it. I think the idea of a guest solubilities. Is, is really important. And so that's the effective thing. Your breath methane is one thing, but measuring dissolved gases is another and so the only gas that's really soluble is co2. And actually dissolved co2 is also important. To the whole animal physiology part of it. I think that, you know, we need to integrate the room and stuff, the animal physiology a lot better. So it's not only about the microbiome in the end, it'll be about host microbe interactions. And then another thing that I've been pushing is this idea of, you know, it's it's fine to say that methane is is a culprit for a lot of the greenhouse gas forcing. But it turns out that nitrous oxide is 298 times more than co2. And then you've got the half life two factor in, but the whole floss favor us. I think, if you take a half life of methane of 10 to 12 years, means we can make an immediate contribution. Whereas to ultimately control you know, global warming, it's going to involve a lot more and people will have to stop producing as much co2. And until that happens, we're still going to be in a bad place. So what happens when animal production goes up? And we exceed our sort of targets? That's That's something for the future, but we have to feed the planet so yeah, it's it's really a very exciting time. I think I'm energized and really excited to to be at this time. Yeah. Unknown 6:28Right. Thank you very, very much for your time. Ya know, it's a pleasure. Thanks. You've been listening to the ash cloud with me ash Sweeting, in conversation with Rod Mackey recorded in California in October 2023.