Professor Dr Nicole Dubilier

Research Priorities: Marine biology, deep-sea research, symbioses between bacteria and invertebrates, chemosynthetic symbioses, ocean biodiversity and ecology
Nicole Dubilier is a German-American marine biologist and deep-sea researcher. She studies symbioses between bacteria and marine invertebrates. Her research delivers key insights into microbial symbioses and their importance for the oceans’ ecosystem.
Nicole Dubilier investigates symbioses – different species that mutually benefit from living in a shared environment – in marine invertebrates. Such creatures include, for example, mussels and worms, which inhabit hot springs in the deep sea. These creatures host bacteria in their bodies, which in turn provide their hosts with energy and nourishment, thus helping them survive. Some hosts are so dependent on these bacteria that they can even survive without a mouth and any kind of digestive tract.
As the deep sea is a very dark environment, the symbioses are usually with what are known as chemosynthetic bacteria. Unlike plants, these bacteria can create energy without help from sunlight. Instead, they use energy sources such as methane or hydrogen sulphide. This allows the bacteria and their hosts to make extreme environments their habitat. The research of Nicole Dubilier and her team has shown that chemosynthetic symbioses are widespread in marine environments. She was the first to discover that some hosts accommodate several different symbionts, which interact in a finely coordinated manner. In recent studies she has shown that chemosynthetic symbionts can use hydrogen gas and even toxic carbon monoxide as energy sources.
Nicole Dubilier has participated in numerous expeditions at sea and led international research trips, during which, for example, deep sea hot springs were investigated using underwater robots, and gutless worms were gathered from the sands of tropical coral reefs. She uses a broad range of modern techniques in her lab work, drawing on methods from molecular biology, physiology, and image analysis.
Her research has shown how diverse chemosynthetic symbioses can be, how successful microorganisms are at obtaining numerous different hosts as partners, and how many animal species benefit from these symbioses. Nicole Dubilier wants to continue learning about these symbioses, as they play a key role in the biodiversity and ecology of oceans. In addition, research into sea creatures can help us better understand the manifold and far more complex symbioses in humans.