On the morning of August 11, invited by microorganism energy innovation team from Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Professor William B. Whitman from University of Georgia and Doctoral student Lu Yue from Wageningen University were invited to give an academic report in BIOMA.

Professor William has focused on anaerobic microbiology research for long periods of time, especially achieving outstanding results in biochemistry and heredity of methanogens, prokaryotic microbial systematics and microbial genomics and published over 200 research papers in international journals, such as Nature and PNAS. Dr. Whitman is an American Academy of Microbiology and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has successively won many outstanding awards, including the United States President's Award for Young Scientists; Bergey Medal Awards and so on and now hold the post of chief editor in Bergey’s Manual. Dr. Whitman made 2 academic reports covering “Methanococcus maripaludis, a model system for hydrogen trophic methanogens” and “Type material for the description of prokaryotes in the age of genomics” and shared ideas and experiences of anaerobic microbiology research with laboratory members. Lu Yue gave a lecture named "Ecophysiology and environmental distribution of organ halide-respiring bacteria", introducing the structure and function of the organic halide anaerobic organism flora and its distribution and physiological ecology characteristics in the environment. Finally postgraduate student Zhang Xue in BIOMA also made an academic report entitled “Ecophysiology and environmental distribution of organ halide-respiring bacteria” and all of participants also visited the Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Development and Application of Rural Renewable Energy, Ministry of Agriculture.

Editor by Wang Zixuan