Nicole Dubilier is a marine

microbiologist A microbiologist (from Ancient Greek, Greek ) is a scientist who studies microscopic life forms and processes. This includes study of the growth, interactions and characteristics of Microorganism, microscopic organisms such as bacteria, algae, f ...

and director of the Symbiosis Department at the

Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology __NOTOC__ The Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology is located in Bremen, Germany. It was founded in 1992, almost a year after the foundation of its sister institute, the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology at Marburg. In 1996 ...

since 2013 and a Professor of Microbial Symbioses at the

University of Bremen The University of Bremen (German: ''Universität Bremen'') is a public university in Bremen, Germany, with approximately 23,500 people from 115 countries. It is one of 11 institutions which were successful in the category "Institutional Strategi ...

. She is a pioneer in ecological and evolutionary

symbiotic Symbiosis (from Greek , , "living together", from , , "together", and , bíōsis, "living") is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasit ...

relationships between sea animals and their microbial partners inhabiting environments that harbour low nutrient concentrations. She was responsible for the discovery of a new form of symbiosis between two kinds of bacteria and the marine oligochaete

Olavius algarvensis ''Olavius algarvensis'' is a species of gutless oligochaete worm in the family Tubificidae which depends on symbiotic bacteria for its nutrition. Habitats and research ''Olavius algarvensis'' lives in coastal sediments in the Mediterranean. It ...

Career

In 1985, Dubilier obtained her degree in Zoology, Biochemistry and Microbiology and completed her Ph.D. in

marine biology Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies s ...

at the

University of Hamburg The University of Hamburg (german: link=no, Universität Hamburg, also referred to as UHH) is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('' Allgemeines Vor ...

with Olav Giere in 1992. During her graduate studies, she found herself dispassionate about her research, often wanting to quit, but her persistence propelled her to the finishline. In 1992, motivated to re-discover the excitement of her field, Dubilier attended a molecular biology summer course taught by Donald Manahan at

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

. Later, from 1993–1995, she experienced her first Post-doc with the guidance of

Colleen Cavanaugh Colleen Marie Cavanaugh is an American academic microbiologist best known for her studies of hydrothermal vent ecosystems. As of 2002, she is the Edward C. Jeffrey Professor of Biology in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at ...

hydrothermal vent A hydrothermal vent is a fissure on the seabed from which geothermally heated water discharges. They are commonly found near volcanically active places, areas where tectonic plates are moving apart at mid-ocean ridges, ocean basins, and hotspot ...

s chemosynthetic life forms. Two years later, she started her career at the

(MPI-MM), first as a Postdoc studying the Evolution of bacterial symbiosis in gutless worms (1997–2001) and afterwards as the Coordinator of the MPI-MM International Research Program (2002–2017), Head of the Symbiosis Laboratory (2001–2017) and the Head of the Symbiosis Department (since 2013). Dubilier has continued her work on symbiotic relationships within chemosynthetic living organisms, expanding her exploration of both shallow and deep-sea environments, ranging from

seagrass Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and Cymodoceaceae), all in the orde ...

to coastal sediments, through meta-omic approaches, ''e.g. metaproteomics and

metagenomics Metagenomics is the study of genetic material recovered directly from environmental or clinical samples by a method called sequencing. The broad field may also be referred to as environmental genomics, ecogenomics, community genomics or microb ...

.'' Her primary animal models constitute of

shrimp Shrimp are crustaceans (a form of shellfish) with elongated bodies and a primarily swimming mode of locomotion – most commonly Caridea and Dendrobranchiata of the decapod order, although some crustaceans outside of this order are refer ...

, gutless-worms,

nematode The nematodes ( or grc-gre, Νηματώδη; la, Nematoda) or roundworms constitute the phylum Nematoda (also called Nemathelminthes), with plant-Parasitism, parasitic nematodes also known as eelworms. They are a diverse animal phylum inhab ...

s, and

ciliate The ciliates are a group of alveolates characterized by the presence of hair-like organelles called cilia, which are identical in structure to flagellum, eukaryotic flagella, but are in general shorter and present in much larger numbers, with a ...

Awards and honors

*2009 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) Applied and Environmental Microbiology chapter. *2013 Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Marine Microbiology Initiative Award. *2014 German Research Foundation Gottfried Wilhelm

Leibniz Prize The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (german: link=no, Förderpreis für deutsche Wissenschaftler im Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz-Programm der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft), in short Leibniz Prize, is awarded by the German Research Foundation to ...

. *2017 Co-Chair American Society Microbiology Microbe Conference. *2018 Elected member of EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization) *2019 Plymouth Marine Science Medal Lecture *2020 Excellence Professor Award of the Petersen Foundation *Since 2013 Elected member at the American Academy of Microbiology. *Since 2020 President of the International Society of Microbial Ecology

Selected publications

* * * * *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dubilier, Nicole Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American microbiologists University of Bremen faculty University of Hamburg alumni American women biologists Women microbiologists American women academics 21st-century American women Max Planck Institute directors