Where are you from, and what is your role in Extreme 2004?

I am a professor of marine biology at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. I was invited to participate on this cruise together with Steffi Markert, a Ph.D. student from Greifswald/Germany. My main interest on this cruise is to characterize the bacterial symbionts from the tubeworm Riftia pachyptila and to investigate the changes they undergo in different environments.

What questions are you trying to answer and why?

The bacterial symbionts of the tubeworm Riftia pachyptila provide the worm with most or all of its nutritional needs. The host does not have a digestive system as a result and is, therefore, entirely dependent on the symbionts. Since the symbionts cannot be extracted and cultured under controlled conditions, we have to characterize them using biochemical and molecular methods. In an ongoing collaboration with Shellie Bench, Bob Feldman, and others we are sequencing and analyzing the genome of the symbiont. It appears that there is more than one symbiont present in the worm. However, the symbionts are closely related. In parallel, the proteome of the symbionts is characterized in collaboration with a group from Greifswald/Germany. We hope to be able to obtain more samples of symbionts from tubeworms from different habitats to extend the analysis of the proteome.

What is your background, and what lured you into marine science/education?

My first exposure to research in the marine environment was as a biology student at the University of Muenster/Germany. We had excursions to the intertidal flats off the coast of northern Germany and investigated the life in this area. On one of these excursions, I decided to research for my diploma thesis investigating the physiological and biochemical adaptations to temporary anaerobiosis (= temporary life without oxygen) of a polychaete worm living in the mud of the flats. I continued with this topic through my Ph.D. thesis in Germany. After my thesis, I moved to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography as a postdoc, initially for one year only. Shortly after my arrival, the first biological expedition to the hydrothermal vents ended here in San Diego, and we were given frozen samples of a variety of vent animals including the tubeworms. Since then, I have been working with vent animals and other organisms with chemoautotrophic bacterial symbionts. The results of this research allowed me to stay as a faculty member at Scripps. I have participated on numerous cruises to hydrothermal vents in the Pacific and Atlantic during the past 20 years, have been chief scientist on some, have been on expeditions investigating symbionts on worms from shallow - water tropical areas, and have looked for animals with symbionts in Antarctica.