Research
The Acidithiobacilli
Members of the genus Acidithiobacillus, now ranked within the class Acidithiobacillia, are model bacteria for the study of chemolithotrophic energy conversion under extreme conditions. We study the Acidithiobacillia from a wide range of habitats to contribute knowledge on their genomic diversity and evolution. Using advanced genomic analysis we are re-evaluating the taxonomy of the class.
Extreme Acidophiles
Extreme acidophiles are life-forms that grow optimally at pH 3 or less, and are scattered in all three domains of the tree of life. Together with other categories of extremophiles, they have greatly expanded our knowledge of the diversity of life, our understanding on how microorganisms can adapt to seemingly hostile situations, and provided scenarios for the possibility that life-forms may be found outside of our solar system. We study different aspects of the ecophysiology of diverse acidophilic model microorganisms.
Acidic Microbiomes
Extremely acidic environments have global distribution and can have natural or anthropogenic origins. High resolution compositional and functional profiling of these microbiomes have begun to reveal spatial diversity patterns at global, regional, local, zonal and micro-scales. Future integration of genomic and other meta-omic data will offer new opportunities to utilize acidic microbiomes and to engineer beneficial interactions within them in biotechnologies.
