Team

I culture representative isolates of dominant groups of oligotrophic marine bacteria (e.g. SAR11, Verrucomicrobia) that we have isolated from the Eastern Mediterranean Sea to study their physiologic and genomic adaptations to the ultra-oligotrophic conditions typical of this marine region. Further, I work on sponge bacterial isolates that contain gene clusters involved in the production of secondary metabolites, to determine the growth conditions that regulate the expression of genes of biotechnological interest. 

Rhodopsins have been reported as the most abundant phototrophy strategy in bacterioplankton cells, especially in oligotrophic regions of the ocean. However, the rhodopsin-related physiology in different taxonomic groups of bacteria remains understudied. During my Ph.D. I will work with different strains of photo-heterotropic bacteria in order to identify how rhodopsins affect their physiology and contribute to the understanding of the role of these molecules on a global scale. Further, I am interested in studying the potential for methane production via demethylation of organic compounds found in dissolved organic matter, both in nitrogen- and in phosphate-depleted environments of the surface ocean. Personally, I'm interested in Bioinformatics, techniques of Molecular Biology and scientific diving. 

I am interested in discovering novel molecular mechanisms that enable recognition between marine sponges and their microbial symbionts. For this purpose, I used comparative genomics on the phylum Actinobacteria to determine differences between sponge symbiotic and water-column free-living bacteria. This led to the discovery of a new eukaryotic-like protein in sponge symbionts which is absent in their free-living counterparts. This protein may be involved in the evasion of symbionts from sponge phagocytosis. I am presently writing my MSc thesis (and an article) on this topic. I also love art and merge it with science by being the scientific graphic designer of our lab. 

After an undergraduate research project on the role of rhodopsins in marine Verrucomicrobia, I have continued to a Master's program, where my current project is on SAR11, the numerically dominant bacteria in global surface oceans.  Specifically, I am investigating if SAR11 plays a role in global warming via methyl phosphonate biosynthesis, a source of phosphate for bacteria when inorganic phosphate is limited. I postulate that some SAR11 strains are responsible for most of the MPn biosynthesis in the ocean. My aim is to test this hypothesis and investigate what environmental conditions trigger MPn biosynthesis. As a hobby, I am the photographer in our lab events.