About
We are enquiring the processes and pathways that drive evolution. We are focused on transitions, gene function, organization, cellular communication and the interplay with the physical and chemical environment. With robust control of the physical and chemical environment, we explore how e.g. oxygen, nutrition and stress levels influence cell and community growth, how mineralogy enables evolutionary processes and how element cycling are affected by its close environment. We aim to advance insights – both literally and conceptually – of the processes at the interface between life and the physical environment.
Our approaches cross temporal and spatial scales and we span from the molecular level to large system scales. We apply a range of methods and techniques ranging from fieldwork, carefully controlled lab-scale model systems, molecular interrogations of
solid-fluid-molecule/tumor interactions and microbe-microbe relations.
Emma Hammarlund
Head of:
Molecular Evolution Group
Geobiologist, particularly hooked on why it took so long for large life to diversify on Earth.
The group focus on the importance of hypoxia over animal evolution and how transitions in multicellularity happens. In addition to animals, we use tumors as an information source to how cells evolve and devolve tissue.
Karina K. Sand
Head of:
Molecular Geobiology Group
Track record in quantifying molecular-mineral interactions at the nanoscale and bridging between model and environmental systems. She is currently focused on DNA-sediment interactions, mineral facilitated horizontal gene transfer and biofilm formation at mineral surfaces.
Liselotte Jauffred
Head of:
Biophysics Group
Experimental biophysicist using a multitude of imaging modalities, e.g., confocal scanning and light-sheet microscopy, in combination with force measurements. Her projects extends from biofilm formation to cancer spreading patterns, with a focus on the biophysical aspects of intra-cellular interactions and motility and how they regulate evolutionary dynamics, and vice versa.
Nicole R. Posth
Head of:
Geomicrobiology & Biogeochemistry Group
A geomicrobiologist and sediment biogeochemist studying microbial element cycling, biomineralization, and microbe-mineral interactions. Bridging field and laboratory experiments, her projects range from interpreting the role of microorganisms in the evolution of life on Earth to the impact of microbial life in driving biogeochemical cycles in the Anthropocene.