New award to hunt for uncultivated archaea

We recently received a new award from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Simons Foundation as part of their new initiative to uncover the origins of the eukaryotic cell. Current models of eukaryogenesis suggest that the first eukaryotes arose from within the Archaea. Additional genomes from deeply branching archaeal lineages would vastly improve our understanding of biological innovation in the archaeal lineage that may have contributed to the first eukaryotic cells.

This work is a collaboration with Susann Müller at the Helmholtz Institute in Leipzig, Germany, Thomas Richards at Oxford University, and Brett Baker at the University of Texas.