Our mission in a nutshell: Our lab investigates unique and conserved features of metabolic enzymes from Bacillus bacteria that are capable of rewiring their metabolism to facilitate the process of “bioremediation” – using living organisms to clean up the environment. We’re most interested in the bioremediation of the toxic heavy metal chromium, Cr(VI). High levels of Cr(VI) are incompatible with most life. However, some bacteria are able to not only survive in its presence, but also reduce it to a much less hazardous form, Cr(III). A sort of biological “detox” if you will. This form of remediation is much more environmentally-friendly and sustainable than conventional chemical and physical methods, but the metabolic adaptations involved are not well-characterized. By unraveling these adaptations in the largely-uncharacterized bacterium Bacillus safensis, with an emphasis on the core metabolic enzyme malate dehydrogenase (MDH) and comparing it to the related model organism B. subtilis, we hope to help advance the use of these microbes for environmental clean-up and/or sustainable biotechnology. Additionally, our findings will provide fundamental insight into the evolution of MDH enzymes and inter-subunit protein dynamics that can inform structural predictions and facilitate protein engineering.