A key challenge confronting biologists today is how to analyze and
understand the enormous amount of biological information that is being
generated. This data, either in the form of whole genome sequences
or differential gene expression of microarray experiments represents
a unique compendium of metabolism and community in direct biochemical
interaction with the earth system. Modern prokaryotic organisms appear
to be capable of virtually any metabolism that is thermodynamically
favorable. As today's contemporary microbial population is the progeny
of earth's earliest life, the metabolic innovations at work today
are the products of primary inventiveness from earth's ancient biota.
It is of great interest to understand how microbes have acquired,
shared, and/or invented these diverse metabolic abilities and to what
extent their environment shaped them in the past and continues to
do so today. (Check out this timeline for life!)
My research seeks to understand microbial metabolic diversity through
extensive pathway analyses of fundamental microbial metabolisms. Fundamental
pathways are those whose presence on earth would have been critical
for early evolution because they are responsible for much of the geobiochemical
recycling in early earth. Examples of these are the invention of photosynthesis,
oxygenic photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, methanogenesis, and sulfate
reduction. We also study the origins of cellular containment, cellular
division, and the bacteria cell wall.
Four approaches are being used to investigate prokaryotic metabolic
and cellular evolution.
