Funding

Topic of research: SAR11 as a model system to understand potential effects of phosphonate cycling on methane emission in future warmer oceans. [Collaboration with Prof. Daniel Repeta]

Topic of research: New tools for advancing model systems in aquatic symbiosis: Establishing marine sponges as models for evolutionary, ecological and mechanistic aspects of animal-bacterial symbiosis. [Collaboration with Prof. Sandie Degnan (main PI), Prof. Ute Hentschel, Prof. Torsten Thomas, Prof. Patel Nipam, Dr. Jasper de Goeji]

Topic of research: The role of rhodopsin phototrophy in ocean’s solar energy capture and its regulation in contrasting nutrient regimes. [Collaboration with Dr. Laura Gomez Consarnau, University of Southern California]

Topic of research: Resource partitioning among low nutrient adapted bacteria in the open-ocean: the base of the ocean food web. [Collaboration with Prof. Oded Beja, Technion Israel Institute of Technology

Topic of research: Identification of Molecular Mechanisms underlying Sponge-Microbiome Symbiosis. 

Topic of research: Genomes of Mediterranean marine microbes.

Topic of research ‘A novel approach to fight antibiotic-resistant pathogens: acquisition of quorum sensing inhibitors from marine sponges’. [Collaboration with Dr. Venturi, ICGEB, Trieste, Italy] 

Topic of research ‘Role of N-acyl homoserine lactone quorum sensing in maintaining sponge specific polybacterial communities’. [Collaboration with Dr. Venturi, ICGEB, Trieste, Italy] 

Topic of research: Isolation of sponge-associated bacteria: a first step to reveal bacterial adaptations to life in symbiosis with a sponge. [Collaboration with Prof. Giovannoni, OSU, Corvallis, OR, USA]

Topic of research: Photoheterotrophy: Physiological and genetic characterization of how dominant heterotrophic bacteria channel light energy into the ocean.