A University of Oklahoma research team, led by OU Professor Lee Krumholz, is studying methane-consuming microbes from extreme environments that can be re-engineered for industrial applications, such as biodegradable plastics and electricity. OU’s role in the collaborative study with South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and Montana State University is to collect microbial samples from extreme environmental sites and to extract DNA and RNA to determine the microbial community composition and the microbial activities that pertain to methane consumption.