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Costantino
Vetriani
Associate Professor
Rutgers University
Dept. of Biochemistry and Microbiology
Institute of Marine & Coastal Sciences
School of Env & Biol Sciences
New Brunswick. NJ 08903
(848) 932-3379
FAX - 6557
vetriani@imcs.rutgers.edu
Deep
Sea Microbiology Lab |
Deep-sea microbiology. extremophiles. molecular ecology. adaptations to extreme environments
Research in my laboratory is focused on: i)
the diversity. ecology and evolutionary relationships of deep-sea prokaryotes. with an emphasis on deep-sea hydrothermal vents and cold seeps. and ii) the
microbial adaptations to extreme environmental conditions (e.g.. thermophily. psychrophily). More specifically. we work on the isolation and
characterization of novel organisms from deep-sea environments. with an
emphasis on thermophilic Archaea and Bacteria. and we look at community
dynamics along chemical and physical gradients at deep-sea vents and cold
seeps. Our experimental strategies include standard approaches in marine
microbiology. such as enrichment cultures/isolations. and molecular ecological
approaches. such as PCR. library construction and screening. sequencing. DGGE. and FISH. Furthermore. in collaboration with biochemists. we use genetic
engineering and biochemical approaches. combined with comparative protein
structure modeling. to study the evolutionary adaptive features that allow
microorganisms to thrive in the extreme environmental conditions found in the
deep-sea (e.g.. extremely high temperature found at deep-sea vents). We
believe that the integration of multiple approaches is critical to understand
the ecology and evolution of deep-sea microorganisms.
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