Our research is focused on the discovery of novel bacterial, archaeal and eukaryotic microbes and viruses in environmental sequence data. We use multi-omics (metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, single cell genomics and phylogenomics) and machine learning to identify new divergent lineages and expand the Tree of Life. We then investigate the coding potential to find novel functions that may impact microbiome structure and biogeochemical cycles.
Research Team
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| Frederik Schulz, PI, Research Scientist | Tomas Tyml, Postdoc | Juan Villada, Postdoc | Clarence Le, Affiliate Researcher |
| FSchulz@lbl.gov | TTyml@lbl.gov | JVilladaArteaga@lbl.gov | CLe2@lbl.gov |
| More about Frederik. | Tomas uses traditional cultivation methods along with microscopy and genomics for studying endosymbiotic associations within microbial eukaryotes. With his research, he hopes to broaden our understanding of the roles that these associations have played in the evolutionary history of life. | Juan uses approaches at the interface of evolutionary genomics and systems biology to discover novel microbial lineages, predict their lifestyle, and investigate their effects on the environment | Clarence identifies and analyzes novel clades of RNA viruses and determines novel viral gene functions that may impact hosts and host populations. |
Selected Publications
A complete publication list available at Google Scholar.
- Schulz et al. (2020) Giant virus diversity and host interactions through global metagenomics. Nature. 578 (7795), 432-436
- Schulz et al. (2020) Advantages and limits of metagenomic assembly and binning of a giant virus. mSystems. 5 (3)
- Schulz et al. (2018) Hidden diversity of soil giant viruses. Nature Communications. 9 (1), 1-9
- Schulz et al. (2017) Towards a balanced view of the bacterial tree of life. Microbiome. 5 (1), 1-6
- Schulz et al. (2017) Giant viruses with an expanded complement of translation system components. Science, 356 (6333), 82-85
- Schulz et al. (2016) A Rickettsiales symbiont of amoebae with ancient features. Environmental Microbiology. 18 (8), 2326-2342
- Schulz and Horn (2015) Intranuclear bacteria: inside the cellular control center of eukaryotes. Trends in cell biology. 25 (6), 339-346
- Schulz et al. (2015) Marine amoebae with cytoplasmic and perinuclear symbionts deeply branching in the Gammaproteobacteria. Scientific reports. 5 (1), 1-10
- Schulz et al. (2014) Life in an unusual intracellular niche: a bacterial symbiont infecting the nucleus of amoebae. The ISME Journal. 8 (8), 1634-1644