Thierry Lebeau

Thierry Lebeau is a full professor at the University of Nantes. For the past 20 years his work has been focussing on non-point source pollutions in soils: trace metals and organic compounds including PCB and pesticides. He more especially works on plant growth promoting rhizobacteria and the role of siderophores on the mobility of trace metals in soils, and conversely on the effect of trace metals on soil microorganisms. He has also been developing processes associating microorganisms and plants to improve phytoremediation performances for soils contaminated by trace metals and polychlorinated biphenyls. He especially designs bioaugmentation and phytoextraction-based processes to clean-up soil contaminated by various trace metals: Cr, Cs, Cu, Pb, rare earth elements.