Amidst the louder bytes of Sanjay Dutt’s sentence, the news of India’s first visit to the Arctic was buried and lost. But for Dr S Shivaji and a team of four others, it made no difference. They had some exciting science, uncovering buried bacteria and packing them to take back home.

Dr S Shivaji, deputy director, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, is a veteran of cold climes and bacteria, having been to the Antarctic twice before. But “Arctic was different in some ways. While Antarctic is a huge mass of land surrounded by ice, Arctic is a huge chunk of ice surrounded by land,” he explained.

The Arctic is ideal for research as the climate is very moderate. “In fact, when we were there, it was summer and it was in the range of 2-8 deg C. A fantastic time for research. The other aspect is that there are so many glaciers here and they are all approachable,” Dr Shivaji said.

He should know, as he has been to the icy continent and to the Himalayas, where “you have to trek at least to an altitude of 15,000 feet to reach a glacier. I have been there. In the Arctic, the glaciers are almost  at sea level and the  access to the glacier is easy. In Himalayas, one needs to trek for hundreds of kilometres from the mouth of the glacier to reach the confluence of the glacial melt water with the sea. This distance in the Arctic is barely 2-3 Kms.” 

He and a colleague from Goa’s NIO were able to visit 2-3 glaciers in two weeks and collected samples of sediments and water from the various points. This helps in studying the bacterial dynamics along the course, and determine how they vary and ascertain which population dominates, etc.

This is very difficult even in the Antarctic, he said, “due to glaciers being inaccessible and very far away from base stations.”

“The best part of the Arctic is that there is no anthropogenic activity here! We can get a clear baseline bacterial population dynamics data.”

The main thrust of the biology experiments was biodiversity mapping and bioprospecting. “We have done this in the Antarctic. In fact CCMB has been an expert in this area having identified 25 new species of bacteria of the total 125 new species reported so far from Antarctica. The Arctic expedition was an opportunity to take advantage of this expertise,” said Dr Shivaji.

The team was looking for similarities between bacteria found in Antarctic, Himalayas and the Arctic, all “cold-loving bacteria.” The other aspect was to look for biomolecules useful for drug industry, etc.

“But for me the most important aspect is to understand how life ticks at sub-zero temperatures. We have established various modes by which bacteria do this. Recently  by inactivating a few genes, we were able to identify genes required for survival at low temperatures.  You can say we have established the specificity of a gene with respect to its functionality at low temperatures,” he explained.

Even more interesting was to learn “how the bacteria sense temperature.” The other aspect was to check the “theory of endemism” according to which life forms are restricted to geographic regions. “We found the same bacteria in Arctic, Antarctic and Himalayas, so to that extent the theory may not be true. It is possible it holds true for certain habitats like hot springs, thermal vents, etc.”

The samples will keep us busy for a long time, he said, “the ones I collected from Antarctic in 1984 are still being used for  some ongoing studies. We need to first culture the Arctic samples for the presence of bacteria and then identify them. Establishing identity can take up to a year or more.”

The microbes are a vital bio-resource, Dr Shivaji explained, “and drug companies are looking for molecules with anti-cancer properties, and other commercial uses as in the detergent industry, baking industry, brewery industry etc. We will bioprospect for molecules of commercial interest but would not delve too deep into that. If we find an interested industrial partner, we may pursue the molecule or else we would just move on.”

 The expedition was sponsored by the GoI’s department of earth science under the S&T ministry. The stay was at Alesund which comes under the government of Norway and the accommodation was rented from a Norwegian company.

Global warming
“There is clear evidence of global warming here. The trail from the US across the fjords, Krossfjord and Kongsfjord, as recently as three years back in winter was completely frozen. But now even in winter the fjords are no longer frozen and there is so much of melt water which is a clear indication of global warming.”