January 12, 2012

Indian researchers uncover micro-organism to accelerate chicken feather disposal

Indian researchers have found a way for the quick disposal of chicken feathers through the discovery of a new micro-organism that can disintegrate the protein in them in 30 hours.

Chicken feathers usually take five to seven years to disintegrate because of the keratin component in them. The micro-organism is discovered by Jyoti Jadhav, Head of the Biotechnology Department of Shivaji University in Kolhapur, and her research student, Ranjit Gurav.

"We were collecting micro-organisms from the soil and found six of them capable of disintegrating chicken feathers in various time-frames," said Jadhav, who had been working with Gurav on this project for the last three-and-a-half years.

Of the six, one was found to be potent and was deposited with the International Database Bank in the US. Little did Jadhav and Gurav know that they had chanced upon a new species of micro-organism, which was later named the 'Chryseobacterium' species by Research Bio Technology.

"Chicken feathers have to be placed in a liquid mixed with the micro-organism. This mixture needs aeration. This is a simple method and the technology can be easily transferred to laymen," said Gurav.

The microorganism secretes the enzyme keratinise, which breaks keratin into peptides and then into amino acids. "After the degradation of the feathers, the liquid residue contains natural amino acids, which are much better bio-fertilisers than chemically-made amino acids. The trials of this liquid remains on plants have shown good results," Jadhav said.

Jadhav is recently honoured with the Young Woman Scientist Award of the Biotech Research Society India.