Glyphosate Project
Recent PhD graduate Adrian Van Dyk focused on the degradation of glyphosate, an herbicide which can affect crops that are not engineered to have resistance, by bacteria. He investigated bacterial community composition when glyphosate is the sole phosphorus source to isolate bacteria capable of degrading this herbicide. Species capable of using glyphosate as a phosphorus source often use the C-P lyase pathway.
Minghui Ma, current PhD in the Charles lab, spent her honours' thesis project in her undergrad investigating a glyphosate oxidase which was discovered using a functional metagenomic approach. This glyphosate oxidase is the first isolated from a natural source which preferentially degrades glyphosate over glycogen - prior to this, glycogen oxidation was observed as an activity performed by glycogen oxidases which preferentially perform oxidation on glycogen.
You can read more about their work in the linked publication
Chemical Structure of Glyphosate