Molecular Limits of Life

We work at understanding the mechanisms underpinning microbial life in extreme conditions. We seek to identify the molecular evolution mechanisms and the cellular machineries (chaperones, proteases and peptidases) that allow the maintenance of the integrity of archaeal proteomes under extreme conditions. Our work is helping us to understand the extraordinary ability of extremophiles to occupy a wide variety of ecological niches in the planet’s most hostile environments, thus representing an important part of the Earth’s microbiome. It also specifies the limits of life’s resilience on Earth and possibly on other planets. Finally, the discovery of novel classes of hydrolases combined with a fine understanding of their structures and extremophilic properties allows to develop efficient enzymes for industry.

The activity is divided in 4 projects: