History

The group was born at the end of the 1990s with a interdisciplinary collaboration between Professor Jesús Sánchez (Area of Microbiology) and, on the one hand, the current director of the group, Professor Heminio Sastre (Area of Environmental Technology), and, on the other hand, with Professor Rodríguez Gallego (Area of Mining Prospection). Since then, among the research conducted we can highlight, on a real scale, those performed in the Galician and Asturian coasts affected by the oil spill of the Prestige, and also the collaboration with enterprises in field such as biotechnology, petrochemistry and environmental remediation, in diverse projects of recovery of soils and subterranean waters affected by hydrocarburates and other pollutants. The group has been a pioneer in Spain, for example, for designing the first bioremediation of a soil polluted with HAPs.

Moreover, the phytoremediation that has been conducted for more than a decade by the line of research of Professor A. González (Area of Plant Physiology), who joined the group alongside her team in the recent years. It is noteworthy in this field projects such as the one conducted with ARCELOR-MITTAL, whose objective was to recover contaminated soils through phytoremediation. This theme, alongside the previously-mentioned ones, is still active through the European project LIFE+, named I+DARTS (www.lifeidarts.eu), led by the group, and active until 2016.

Finally, in 2013, the group, as part of the University Institute of Biotechnology of Asturias (IUBA), joins the official listing according to the Regulations of the University of Oviedo, after successfully passing (88 out of 100 points) an external evaluation of its activities during the previous five years.