Natural microbial communities have an enormous impact on the planet and environment, as drivers of global biogeochemical processes such as carbon and nitrogen cycling. Due to recent advances in genomics and mass spectrometry, we have more data than ever about microbial biology and chemistry. However, translating these findings to the community context lags behind—how do individual microbes and metabolites interact to determine community function and ecology?
The long-term goals of our research are to 1) engineer chemical interactions in microbial communities for environmental and industrial applications and 2) create a novel ecology-based natural product discovery pipeline to access microbial chemical diversity.
Currently, we focus on microbial communities in the surface oceans that degrade marine snow, a key crossroads in the marine carbon cycle. We are interested in how these bacterial communities use chemistry to regulate their activity, through specialized metabolites like signaling molecules, antibiotics, and novel natural products.
In our work, we combine a chemical biology toolbox, including metabolomics and bioorthogonal chemistry, with modern microbiology methods, bioinformatics, and environmental sampling.
Currently, we focus on microbial communities in the surface oceans that degrade marine snow, a key crossroads in the marine carbon cycle. We are interested in how these bacterial communities use chemistry to regulate their activity, through specialized metabolites like signaling molecules, antibiotics, and novel natural products.
In our work, we combine a chemical biology toolbox, including metabolomics and bioorthogonal chemistry, with modern microbiology methods, bioinformatics, and environmental sampling.