Cyanobacteria are evolutionary ancient organisms with ecological significance. They are able to form symbiosis with lichens, cycads or as part of biological soil crust communities from various environments (e.g. Antarctic, Atacama Desert) but are underrepresented at the genomic level. This project will focus these rare cyanobacteria, with the genomic data used for synthetic biology approaches of drug discovery (Direct Pathway Cloning), biotechnology, ecology/astrobiology, evolutionary biology, toxicity and carbon/nitrogen nutrient cycling under conditions of climate change.
Proposer: Paul D’Agostino, Technische Universität Dresden
Proposal: Expanding genomic knowledge of unexplored symbiotic and terrestrial cyanobacteria