2019 PlyMSEF Medal for Nicole Du­bilier

Prof. Dr. Nicole Du­bilier, Dir­ector of the Max Planck In­sti­tute for Mar­ine Mi­cro­bi­o­logy  in Bre­men, Ger­many, was awar­ded this years' Ply­mouth Mar­ine Sci­ence Edu­ca­tion Fund (PlyMSEF) Mar­ine Sci­ence Medal Lec­ture. The medal was awar­ded to Du­bilier for ex­cep­tional con­tri­bu­tions to mar­ine sci­ence.

Du­bilier's medal lec­ture, en­titled “The Art of Har­ness­ing Dark En­ergy: Sym­bi­oses between Chemo­syn­thetic Bac­teria and Mar­ine In­ver­teb­rates”, was held on Novem­ber 5, 2019, at the Uni­versity of Ply­mouth. In her talk, she de­scribed how the meta'om­ic' ana­lyses of sym­bionts from deep-sea hy­dro­thermal vent mus­sels, car­ried out with her team at the Max Planck In­sti­tute for Mar­ine Mi­cro­bi­o­logy, have re­vealed that sym­biont di­versity play a key role in the eco­logy and evol­u­tion of these host-mi­crobe as­so­ci­ations.

“It was a great visit to such an in­spir­ing place for mar­ine re­search,” says Du­bilier. “I feel very honored to have the work my won­der­ful lab has been do­ing re­cog­nized!”