Who we are
We are interested in the natural diversity and ecological distribution of archaea as well as in their viruses and virus defense systems.
Our specific projects include:
- Genomic and proteomic studies of ammonia oxidizing thaumarchaeota from soils, marine sediments and hot springs
- Characterisation of novel lineages of archaea, in particular Asgard archaea, through cultivation and metagenomics
- Studies of virus defense and CRISPR-mediated RNA degradation in the hyperthermophilic archaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus
Why/How are we going Green
We are conscious of the amount of plastic and consumable energy that is needed to perform our experiments within the lab and about the ecological impact of traveling. In order to mitigate the amount of resources that we consume we plan to:
- separate and recycle polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) plastic in the lab
- raise the temperature of our -80°C freezers to -70°C
- recycle polypropylene when possible, including:
- filter tips
- needle caps
- pipette tips
- eppendorf tubes
- syringes
- falcon tubes
- encourage traveling by train rather than plane for distances below 1000 km and reduce the use of airplanes/attendance to conferences or committees at larger distances.
