Bonnie Lynn Bassler is an American molecular biologist; the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology and chair of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University; and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. She has researched cell-to-cell chemical communication in bacteria and discovered key insights into the mechanism by which bacteria communicate, known as quorum sensing. She has contributed to the idea that disruption of chemical signaling can be used as an antimicrobial therapy.
Aliivibrio fischeri is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium found globally in marine environments. This species has bioluminescent properties, and is found predominantly in symbiosis with various marine animals, such as the Hawaiian bobtail squid. It is heterotrophic, oxidase-positive, and motile by means of a single polar flagella. Free-living A. fischeri cells survive on decaying organic matter. The bacterium is a key research organism for examination of microbial bioluminescence, quorum sensing, and bacterial-animal symbiosis. It is named after Bernhard Fischer, a German microbiologist.
The Nocardiaceae are a family of aerobic, non-fastidious, high G+C, Gram-positive actinomycetes that are commonly found in soil and water. Members of this family have been isolated from Antarctic soils. Nocardiaceae present coccobacilli, filamentous or, rarely, fragmented and palisading forms, and filamentous species grow in a branching morphological pattern similar to fungal hyphae.
Antje Boetius is a German marine biologist. She is a professor of geomicrobiology at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, University of Bremen. Boetius received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, with 2.5 million euros in funding, in March 2009 for her study of sea bed microorganisms that affect the global climate. She is also the director of Germany's polar research hub, the Alfred Wegener Institute.
Edward Francis DeLong, is a marine microbiologist and professor in the Department of Oceanography at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, and is considered a pioneer in the field of metagenomics. He is best known for his discovery of the bacterial use of the rhodopsin protein in converting sunlight to biochemical energy in marine microbial communities.
Alexandra (Alex) Z. Worden is a microbial ecologist and genome scientist known for her expertise in the ecology and evolution of ocean microbes and their influence on global biogeochemical cycles.
Microbial symbiosis in marine animals was not discovered until 1981. In the time following, symbiotic relationships between marine invertebrates and chemoautotrophic bacteria have been found in a variety of ecosystems, ranging from shallow coastal waters to deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Symbiosis is a way for marine organisms to find creative ways to survive in a very dynamic environment. They are different in relation to how dependent the organisms are on each other or how they are associated. It is also considered a selective force behind evolution in some scientific aspects. The symbiotic relationships of organisms has the ability to change behavior, morphology and metabolic pathways. With increased recognition and research, new terminology also arises, such as holobiont, which the relationship between a host and its symbionts as one grouping. Many scientists will look at the hologenome, which is the combined genetic information of the host and its symbionts. These terms are more commonly used to describe microbial symbionts.
Kartik Chandran is an American environmental engineer at Columbia University, where he is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering. He primarily works on the interface between environmental molecular and microbiology, environmental biotechnology and environmental engineering. The focus of his research is on elucidating the molecular microbial ecology and metabolic pathways of the microbial nitrogen cycle. Applications of his work have ranged from energy and resource efficient treatment of nitrogen containing wastewater streams, development and implementation of sustainable approaches to sanitation to novel models for resource recovery. Under his stewardship, the directions of biological wastewater treatment and biological nutrient removal were established for the first ever time in the history of Columbia University.
Cristina Takacs-Vesbach is an American microbial ecologist conducting research on the productivity, diversity, and function of microbial communities living at the two extremes of temperature found on Earth-Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys and Yellowstone National Park's thermal springs.
Trista Vick-Majors is an American Assistant Professor in Biological Sciences at Michigan Tech. She is an Antarctic biogeochemist and microbial ecologist, best known for her work showing that microorganisms are present under the Antarctic ice sheet.
Vivian Helena Pellizari is a Brazilian Antarctic scientist known for her work on establishing Antarctic microbiology in Brazil. Pellizari is the head of Department of Oceanographic Biology at Oceanographic Institute of University of São Paulo.
Belinda Carlene Ferrari is an Australian microbiologist who specialises in the genetics and ecology of soil bacteria and fungi, particularly in polar regions. She is an associate professor at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, where she heads a microbiology laboratory.
Alison Murray is an American microbial ecologist and Antarctic researcher, best known for studying the diversity, ecology and biogeography of Antarctic marine plankton dynamics of the plankton over the annual cycle; and her work demonstrating the existence of microbial life within an ice-sealed Antarctic lake. She studies how microorganisms persist and function in extremely cold and harsh environments, including those that lack oxygen and biological sources of energy.
Professor Helene Denise Marsh is an Australian scientist who has provided research in the field of Environmental Science, more specifically Zoology and Ecology. The focal point of her research has been the biology of dugongs, with particular foci in the areas of population ecology, history, reproduction, diet, and movements. She is the Dean of Graduate Research Studies and the Professor of Environmental Science at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, and also a Distinguished Professor in the College of Marine and Environmental Science. Marsh is also a program leader for the Marine and Tropical Research Science Facility. In 2015 she was elected a Fellow of both the Australian Academy of Science (FAA), and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (FTSE). She was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2021 Australia Day Honours.
Brahm Shanker Srivastava is an Indian microbiologist, inventor and a former deputy director and head of Microbiology division of the Central Drug Research Institute. He is the founder of Biotech Research, a non-profit non governmental institution promoting research in the field of biotechnology and is a director of Nextec Lifesciences Private Limited, a start up involved in biomedical products and research applications. He is known for his researches on microbial genetics and is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India.
Margaret McFall-Ngai is an American animal physiologist and biochemist best-known for her work related to the symbiotic relationship between Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes and bioluminescent bacteria, Vibrio fischeri. Her research helped expand the microbiology field, primarily focused on pathogenicity and decomposition at the time, to include positive microbial associations. She currently is a professor at PBRC’s Kewalo Marine Laboratory and director of the Pacific Biosciences Research Program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Maria Makrides is a professor at the University of Adelaide who works on improving women and babies nutritional health. In 2019 she was made a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. She is a professor of human nutrition at the Adelaide Medical School, and a theme leader for the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) Women's and Children's Hospital.
Jean E. Brenchley was an American microbiologist and a professor at the Pennsylvania State University and Purdue University.
Melanie Blokesch is a German microbiologist. Her research focuses on Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium causing cholera. She is a professor of life sciences at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where she heads the Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology.
Lone Gram is Danish microbiologist known for her work in bacterial physiology, microbial communication, and biochemicals that originate from bacterial cultures. She is an elected member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters and has received the Order of the Dannebrog.
