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- Invitational Seminars
Invitational Seminars
Dr. Flora Vincent (EMBL, Heidelberg)
Tuesday, November 10, 2026
10:00 a.m. in Lecture Hall 4012
Host: Dr. Wiebke Mohr/Department of Biogeochemistry
Symbiotic capacity in bloom forming algae
Dr. Michele Laurenti (TU Delft, NL)
Thursday, November 12, 2026
10:00 a.m. in Lecture Hall 4012
Host: Dr. Boran Kartal/Microbial Physiology Group
Nitrogen à la carte: substrates co-respiration and the metabolism of nitrogen-converting microbiomes
Nitrogen-converting microorganisms play pivotal roles across ecosystems and scales, and have been harnessed in environmental biotechnologies for over a century. Yet, our systems‑level understanding of how these microorganisms interact remains limited. This gap greatly hinders our ability to fully leverage their functional potential, for instance to improve nitrogen use efficiency in agriculture or reduce anthropogenic emissions of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N₂O). Inherently complex, nitrogen-converting microbiomes often comprise hundreds of metabolically versatile species that thrive under the dynamic and simultaneous availability of functionally similar substrates, such as diverse energy and nutrient sources. In my presentation, I will explore emerging evidence on how mixed substrates co-utilization shapes the competitive fitness and metabolic niche of individual microorganisms, as well as the emergent phenotype of a microbiome. Drawing on our most recent findings from non-axenic enrichment cultures, I will discuss the ecological and engineering implications of nitrate co-respiration with oxygen or nitrous oxide. Extending beyond the lab, I will delve into wastewater treatment microbiomes, and the seasonality of N2O emissions. Here, I seek to showcase the untapped potential of longitudinal metagenome-resolved metaproteomics to resolve metabolic interactions in complex communities, and identify their ecophysiological controls to inform rational microbiome engineering strategies. To conclude, I will discuss an example of how processes naturally compartmentalize in drinking water filters, and how metaproteomics can reveal microbial metabolic stratification within spatial niches.
Dr. Valerie de Anda (University of Vienna)
Thursday, November 19, 2026
10:00 a.m. in Lecture Hall 4012
Host: Dr. Grace D'Angelo/Department of Sysmbiosis
Microbial Metabolism Across Scales: From the Origins of Complex Life to a Changing Planet
Microorganisms are among the most abundant, diverse, and metabolically versatile forms of life on Earth. For billions of years, their metabolic activities have driven global biogeochemical cycles and shaped the evolutionary history of our planet. Advances in computational approaches and sequencing technologies have dramatically expanded the tree of life, revealing previously unknown microbial lineages and metabolic capabilities. Yet, much of microbial metabolism remains unexplored, and understanding how these capabilities evolved and contribute to ecosystem functioning remains a fundamental challenge. My research integrates computational, evolutionary, ecological, and experimental approaches to investigate microbial metabolism across biological scales and evolutionary time. In this talk, I will show how large-scale genomic analyses, metabolic reconstructions, and interdisciplinary approaches have enabled the discovery of novel bacterial and archaeal lineages, revealed previously undescribed metabolisms with contributions to global biogeochemical cycling and provided new insights into the origins of complex life. Finally, I will introduce my ongoing research combining environmental multi-omics, biochemistry, and experimental validation to uncover the mechanisms and evolutionary constraints governing microbial metabolism and its responses to a changing planet.
Bio
Valerie De Anda is a Senior Research Scientist at the University of Vienna and Adjunct scientist at Marine Biological Laboratory MBL Woods Hole USA. She received her PhD from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and subsequently conducted research at the University of Texas at Austin, where she established an independent research program, before she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida. Her interdisciplinary research combines fieldwork, molecular biology, computational biology, microbial ecology, and evolutionary reconstruction to uncover previously unknown microbial diversity and metabolic capabilities. Her scientific contributions include the discovery of novel bacterial and archaeal lineages and research that has reshaped our understanding of archaeal evolution and the origins of complex eukaryotic life.