The breadth and depth of research in microbial sciences -at Harvard and beyond- is astounding. MSI seminars feature a world-class scientist presenting an hour-long formal talk in their area of expertise. Join us each month as we explore everything from the human microbiome to the deep sea.

This month, we welcome Douglas H. Bartlett speaking on Microbial Life Under Pressure in the Deep Sea: who’s there and how do they adapt?

Professor Douglas H. Bartlett received his Ph.D. in microbial molecular biology at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1985. After several years as a postdoctoral scholar and Research Scientist at the Agouron Institute in La Jolla he assumed a faculty position at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, in 1989, where he now holds the rank of Professor and Associate Vice Chancellor, Marine Sciences. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Microbiology. 

The Bartlett laboratory studies the diversity and adaptations of microbes residing at the outer boundaries of life, including low temperature and elevated conditions of pressure, pH, salinity, and/or chaotropicity. Much of the focus has been on deep-sea hadal trenches. Field work has been facilitated by ocean landers, most recently equipped with specialized pressure-retaining sampling systems. Deep-sea isolates have been obtained using high pressure cultivation. The questions being addressed revolve around the identification of genes required at depth, and the identity and activity of microbes lost using standard sampling practices. Additional current research is exploring the adaptations of deep-sea, deep-subsurface microbes and gene regulation and protein distribution in single cells as a function of pressure.

This event is free and open to the entire microbial community.  After the seminar has ended, we invite you to join us at the Queen's Head pub in the basement of Memorial Hall to informally continue the microbial conversation over microbrews.