The need for innovative solutions has never been more urgent. That’s where microbes come in. 

At Med-Lock, we firmly believe that microbes hold the key to addressing some of our planet’s most pressing issues. Our environmental R+D arm, Med-LockLabs, was founded to harness this potential. Since its inception, we’ve asked big questions to uncover what Earth’s tiniest organisms can do: Can they save honey bees? Can they restore coral reefs? Can they enrich soil? Can they upcycle plastic? In space? 

Now, we pose our next big question: Can we leverage microbes to capture CO₂ and transform it into something useful? 

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‘Extreme’ Microbes for Next-Generation Carbon Technology 

Microbes have been evolving for at least 3.7 billion years.⁴ They are incredibly resilient organisms, and have adapted to survive in our planet’s most extreme environments, from Yellowstone’s scalding hot springs to the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean. In order to withstand these harsh conditions, some have developed unique survival strategies, including the ability to consume CO₂.

Our hypothesis: If we leverage microbes from CO₂-rich environments, we can harness their unique capabilities to enhance carbon sequestration, restore vital ecosystems, and transform the CO₂ into sustainable products.

Last year, on a landmark expedition supported by Med-LockLabs, 2FP discovered a novel volcanic microbe incredibly efficient at consuming CO₂, unlocking new potential in carbon capture technology. 

This year, we will expand on that work. In partnership with 2FP, we’re collaborating on a range of diverse research initiatives to mine extreme environments for beneficial microorganisms and explore broader applications of these microbes to mitigate climate change impacts. These efforts will be led by Dr. Braden Tierney, Co-Founder and Executive Director of 2FP.

A Closer Look at Our Upcoming Initiatives 

This year, we begin with:

• Expeditions: 2FP will continue journeying the field to document and uncover microbes in natural extreme environments. Our 2024 programs will focus on isolating microbial communities with high carbon sequestration capacities and studying coral-associated microbiomes that foster resilience to high-CO₂ conditions. The first expedition will take the team to two volcanic islands off the coast of Japan to cultivate and sample microbes from diverse environments such as oceanic CO₂ seeps, volcanic fields, and coral ecosystems.
• Cultivation: Screening Microbes for Production of Sustainable Products. Under the guidance of Dr. James Henriksen, 2FP’s Co-founder and Director of R&D and scientist at Colorado State University, this laboratory project will identify, isolate, and characterize novel microbes with the capacity to create valuable and useful natural products (think: sugars, oil-based compounds like omega-3 fatty acids, and even biofuels) from CO₂, exploring the immense potential of the “carbon-to-value chain”.
• Application: CO₂ to Product Scale-Up. A continuation of the cultivation work, this laboratory project will establish the infrastructure and processes to scale up microbial production of a range of valuable and useful products.

A Commitment to Sustainable Innovation

We have a lot to learn from the invisible, resilient microbes that call extreme environments home. That’s why we continue to investigate our microbial partners, and why we will traverse the planet (and beyond) to learn more about them. As our co-founder and co-CEO Raja Dhir puts it, “By harnessing the unique capabilities of microbes, we can address critical aspects of the climate crisis, from enhancing ecosystem resilience to innovating carbon utilization strategies.”

We’re so excited to partner with 2FP to take us one step closer to a more sustainable future.

Explore More From 2FP Here:

• The Bacteria That Could Help the World Curb CO₂ Emissions
• Mapping Microbes: Seeking Carbon-Capturing Bacteria Off a Remote Japanese Island
• Meet the Microbes of Your Home

The post Can We Combat Rising CO₂ Levels With Microbes? appeared first on Med-Lock.

At Med-Lock, our work in microbial science reminds us that health is not just human. In this collective home, our health, the health of our planet, and the health of multitudinous species are intricately intertwined and interdependent—there is only One Health. Whether or not you realize it, microbes are already working tirelessly to help heal our planet. And many pioneering scientists are working alongside (and in service of) these microbes in this undertaking. 

In fact, our Med-LockLabs research focuses exclusively on developing novel applications of bacteria to enhance biodiversity and recover ecosystems impacted by human activity. It’s this partnership with visionary researchers and institutions that enables us to translate early research toward real-world applications. Because we don’t have much time to spare. 

Here, meet three of our Scientific Board Members who are pioneering applications of bacteria for planetary health. You can double-click into each of their interviews below.

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How coral probiotics could restore our planet’s reefs with Dr. Raquel Peixoto

Corals are integral to the health of the entire ocean ecosystem and beyond. But a host of threats have put coral reefs at risk of worldwide collapse within the next decade. As a leading researcher in marine microbiology, Dr. Peixoto and her team are answering critical questions about the potential of probiotics to enhance the resilience of, conserve, restore, and protect coral reefs. She has specifically pinpointed key microbes involved in making corals more tolerant to oceanic temperature change.

“I’m developing probiotic medicine to help corals cope with climate change and all of the resulting threats they’re exposed to. Corals—like you—have a microbiome, and certain probiotic species have been shown to help corals fight pathogens, recycle nutrients, clear waste, protect against UV rays, and ameliorate the damage caused by human-induced climate change. So what I do with my team is grow the beneficial bacteria (i.e., probiotics) in the lab, and then we apply them back to corals.”

Double-click into the full Q&A with Dr. Peixoto here.

How enriching soil with beneficial microorganisms could unlock solutions for planetary health with Dr. Janet Jansson

The microorganisms in soil play a crucial role in supporting plant growth and cycling carbon that enters the soil system. With more than 30 years of experience in microbial ecology, Dr. Janet Jansson focuses on microbial communities that reside in soil, sediments, and the human gut. Her research also looks at the impact of climate change on microbial communities in prairie and arctic ecosystems.

“You can think of a root as being an inside-out gut, in a way. It’s very similar. As an internal organ, the gut attracts beneficial microorganisms that help to digest food. In the root, some microorganisms are inside, but a lot are outside…We are studying [probiotics] now by enriching consortia of microorganisms in soil that have beneficial properties, sort of like a probiotic does for the human gut. An example of a beneficial property is growth promotion—so if you add these consortia, the plant grows better. Another example is helping to protect the plant against drought—so if you add this group of microorganisms that are well-adapted to living in soil to the plant before you plant it in arid soil, the plants often survive much better. And we do know that drought and arid systems are anticipated to be much worse in the future with climate change, so we need to think of ways to protect the plants in drought conditions where water is much less available.”

Double-click into the full Q&A with Dr. Jansson here.

How giving probiotics to bees supports their health and longevity with Dr. Brendan Daisley

The honey bee is one of our most vital insect pollinators, responsible for nearly a third of our global food crops. But widespread pesticide use—along with climate change, disease, and habitat loss—has contributed to a reduction of honey bee populations at an alarming rate. Dr. Brendan Daisley’s research focuses on how beneficial microorganisms can help support agricultural processes and global food security through improving the health of important pollinator insects, such as the honey bee.

“When you look at pesticides and other agrochemicals being sprayed on our food products, a big component that isn’t being evaluated is how those agrochemicals are impacting microbes, and specifically the microbes that are inside the human gut microbiome and the cascade effects that can have over generations. It ultimately led me to how probiotics can affect the absorption of these agrochemicals—can they metabolize them so that they don’t pose a threat to human health anymore? Then, there was a logical transition to honey bees, because honey bees are highly exposed to agrochemicals, just given their lifestyle and where we position the hives in the context of beekeeping. And I started looking at the microbes associated with honey bees, and there are just so many overlaps with humans and honey bees, especially in the context of how much we rely on microbes for our health.”

Double-click into the full Q&A with Dr. Daisley here.

Of course, these are just three snapshots of the crucial work that’s being done every day by scientists all over the world. More importantly, they’re anecdotal reminders that the overwhelm one can feel when considering climate change cannot be paralyzing—it must be balanced by hope, ingenuity, and a reverence for science. This is what guides Med-LockLabs and what motivates us to keep looking, keep shifting our own perspectives of what we thought we knew. 

As Med-LockLabs Fellow Dr. Brendan Daisley put it: “At the end of the day, I believe that we’ll figure it out. You have to think of how far we’ve come. Just a hundred years ago, we weren’t even considering microbes at all.”

We have so much more to learn about the invisible world around and within us.

The post Could Bacteria Help Save the Planet? The Work Has Already Started appeared first on Med-Lock.

Update

Microbes are truly the ultimate survivors. They’ve perfected unique ways to live in nearly every extreme environment on Earth—from Yellowstone’s hot pools to the volcanic vents of the deep sea.

As humans face the increasingly existential challenges brought on by climate change, many researchers are looking to microbes to unlock new paths forward for the entire planet. If microbes have managed to adapt to some of the most inhospitable habitats, could we leverage their capabilities to solve some of our planet’s most pressing issues? 

With this question in mind, microbiologist Braden Tierney, Ph.D., along with scientists at The Two Frontiers Project and a global team of collaborators, set out on their first expedition to the volcanic island of Vulcano, Sicily in search of carbon-eating microbes living in the extremely high CO₂ environments there. They hypothesized that these extremophiles could help solve our planet’s urgent CO₂ problem.

What they found supported this hypothesis: While in Sicily, they identified never-before-seen photosynthetic cyanobacteria thriving in the underwater volcanic vents off the coast. These bacteria are so efficient at consuming CO₂ that they appear to outperform other leading carbon-capturing organisms (particularly in terms of biomass production).

Here’s how this research, now published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a top scientific journal for microbiology, could help power the future of carbon sequestration and foster a more sustainable future.¹

So, Why Does This Matter? 

For decades, the world has struggled to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Rising atmospheric CO₂ levels are a major concern for life on Earth, fueling unprecedented ocean acidification—which is quickly becoming one of climate change’s “silent killers.”²

By the end of this century, the ocean is expected to be 150% more acidic than it is now (as a result of increased CO₂ absorption), making it one of the greatest threats to global marine life and beyond.³ In fact, the United Nations’ IPCC emphasized the necessity of CO₂ removal in order to make a meaningful impact on climate change.⁴ But we need innovative strategies to make this possible. 

That’s where microbes come in. Utilizing bacteria could help power next-generation technology for carbon sequestration—the process of removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it.

Harnessing the Power of Microbes for Next-Gen Carbon Capture

While in Sicily, Dr. Tierney and his team dove into the acidic volcanic waters to sample water, sediment, and other sources of microbial life surrounding volcanic CO₂ seeps near Vulcano, a small island off the Sicilian coast.

They then cultured specific carbon-consuming organisms from these samples in a lab environment that favors the growth of microbes with the most voracious appetite for CO₂. Through this work, the researchers isolated the never-before-seen green photosynthetic cyanobacteria, which they named  Cyanobacterium aponinum var vulcano (deposited in the strain bank as UTEX 3222 for the scientific community).

These bacteria grow naturally in the volcanic plumes, where they efficiently use the plentiful CO₂. “They also seem to have adapted to the bubbling, churning environment of the volcanic plumes by becoming denser and sinking more readily—an unusual trait that could prove useful for potentially capturing carbon and sinking it into the deep ocean for sequestration,” said Max Schubert, Ph.D., a Harvard researcher who worked on the project. 

Data also suggests that this strain (lovingly nicknamed “Chonkus”) can be easily grown to high densities and harvested at scale, making it an ideal candidate for photosynthetic bioproduction and marine carbon capture technologies. 

UTEX 3222 is an example of microbial “dark matter”—a microbial species that used to be largely unknown and uncharacterized. It contains a trove of previously unimagined biological mechanisms just waiting to be understood.

“Microbial ‘dark matter’ holds immense potential for understanding and improving the health of our planet,” Dr. Tierney explained. “The discovery of an extremophilic microbe in Yellowstone’s hot springs half a century ago enabled the development of modern PCR testing; with The Two Frontiers Project, we’re taking the same philosophy of microbial exploration and scaling it with next-generation sequencing technologies.”

One Small Step for Microbes

At Med-Lock Health, we believe that unlocking the secrets of this hidden microbial world will allow us to take transformative strides in addressing some of the biggest challenges of today, from climate change and environmental degradation to food insecurity and public health crises.

With the microbiome acting as a critical mediator of interactions between complex ecosystems and the environment, the potential impact of this “dark matter” cannot be overstated.

In addition to Sicily, The Two Frontiers Project team has also gone to Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, islands off the coast of Japan, and other locations in search of novel microbes—and more expeditions are coming soon. 

What’s particularly exciting about this work is that the discoveries don’t end when the researchers are back from their expeditions. As part of this project, Dr. Tierney and team have created a unique open-source “living database” of extreme microbiomes.

The idea is that, once they go out and collect the samples, they come back and sequence them in the lab, and then turn these “living” samples into massive amounts of data. This data enables the researchers to leverage machine learning and advanced sequencing methods as they continue to investigate the biology from their field expeditions long after returning to the lab. 

As Med-Lock’s Scientific Board Member George Church, Ph.D., explained: “Just as we’ve witnessed the tremendous impact of the microbiome on human health, this groundbreaking environmental research will be instrumental in unlocking the microbiome’s potential to tackle some of the most pressing challenges facing our planet, from carbon remediation to resource management to ecological preservation. As we delve deeper into the untapped world of microbial life, we uncover transformative solutions that can significantly improve planetary health and pave the way for a more sustainable future.” 

This research was funded in part by Med-Lock Health’s environmental division, Med-LockLabs. It was jointly led by researchers from the University of Palermo (Dr. Marco Milazzo and Dr. Paola Quatrini), Harvard Medical School and the Wyss Institute at Harvard University, and The Mason Lab. Francesco Italiano, Ph.D. and Alessandro Gattuso, Ph.D. at the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology were instrumental in supporting the project—as was the generous community of Vulcano. 

The Key Insight

It’s clear that we have a lot to learn from the tiny, resilient microbes that call extreme environments home. That’s why we continue to investigate our microbial partners, and why we will traverse the planet (and beyond) to learn more about them. By working to understand their biology and harness their unique abilities, we can take one step closer to a more sustainable future. 

Learn more about this new discovery and read the complete paper on UTEX 3222 here.

Explore More From The Two Frontiers Project Here:

• Mapping Microbes: Seeking Carbon-Capturing Bacteria Off a Remote Japanese Island
• Meet the Microbes of Your Home

The post The Bacteria That Could Help the World Curb The Climate Crisis appeared first on Med-Lock.

The microorganisms in soil play a crucial role in supporting plant growth and cycling carbon that enters the soil system. Dr. Janet Jansson’s work focuses on microbial communities residing in soil, sediments, and the human gut. Her research also looks at the impact of climate change on microbial communities in prairie and arctic ecosystems.

Continue exploring conversations about the fascinating world of bacteria and the vital role they could play in saving our planet here.

If you were meeting someone at a party, how would you describe the work you do? 

“My work focuses on microorganisms in soil. A lot of people don’t realize that soil is chock full of microorganisms. It’s a living ecosystem, but some people think it’s just dirt. So one of the things I try to relay to people is that soil is more than dirt: It is a functional ecosystem with billions of microorganisms, most of which we don’t understand, but they are very important for our life on Earth. Without microorganisms, we wouldn’t be here on Earth. We need them to survive.

“When I first started working with soil, I had no idea how interesting it was. Then I took a soil microbiology course, and just the thought that you have microorganisms in your own backyard was so exciting to me. I could grab a handful of soil and plate it, and I could see the colonies growing. There are all of these different forms of life that you can grow on an agar plate, and they’re doing all of these things to help the plants to grow and help keep us healthy. It was a whole new world that I had no idea about.”

Without microorganisms, we wouldn’t be here on Earth. We need them to survive.

Dr. Janet Jansson

Are there similarities between how microbial communities work in soil and how they work in the human gut? 

“You can think of a root as being an inside-out gut, in a way. It’s very similar. As an internal organ, the gut attracts beneficial microorganisms that help to digest food. In the root, some microorganisms are inside, but a lot are outside. While the signals in roots are different than in the gut, the root similarly signals back and forth with its microorganisms, recruiting the beneficial ones and repelling the negative ones. They have different microbes, but the same sort of interactions.” 

Does soil also benefit from probiotics? How do you foster “good” bacteria in soil?

“We are studying that now by enriching consortia of microorganisms in soil that have beneficial properties, sort of like a probiotic does for the human gut. An example of a beneficial property is growth promotion—so if you add these consortia, the plant grows better. Another example is helping to protect the plant against drought—so if you add this group of microorganisms that are well-adapted to living in soil to the plant before you plant it in arid soil, the plants often survive much better. And we do know that drought and arid systems are anticipated to be much worse in the future with climate change, so we need to think of ways to protect the plants in drought conditions where water is much less available.” 

What does climate change mean for soil and its microorganisms?

“As the climate changes, and as the environment changes, the community compositions of microorganisms will change, but there will still be microorganisms. Soil microorganisms and microorganisms in general adapt to change. In just a gram of soil, you have hundreds of thousands of different types of microorganisms. Some of them are going to die, because they won’t be able to compete. But the ones that are adapted to warmer temperatures and more arid environments will be able to grow better than those that are less resilient to those changes. So there will always be some kind of microorganisms. In general, microorganisms have a much wider spectrum of growth conditions compared to plants and animals.”

How does soil, in turn, impact climate change? 

“Microorganisms in soil are very important for helping to cycle carbon that enters the soil system. They can carry out good things for us by helping plants draw down carbon from the atmosphere, which reduces the impact of global warming. But they can also be the bad guys and be the ones responsible for the production of greenhouse gasses. So it depends on the particular soil ecosystem where these microorganisms are living whether they’re helping to reduce the negative impacts of climate change or contributing to it.”

How do the microorganisms in soil affect the plants that humans eat?

Microorganisms are important for plant productivity—for getting high yields of crops. Soil microorganisms do many different things to promote plant growth. They can produce hormones that help plants to grow better. They can also protect plants from pathogens by coating the root and protecting the plant from attack. Of course, some microbes are pathogens, but most of them are beneficial. If you compare a plant grown in a sterile soil system to one that has a natural microbial community, the plant that has microorganisms grows much better. That’s because there’s a synergistic interaction between the microorganisms and the plants. 

Is there anything that individuals can do or think about when it comes to how they interact with soil?

If you’re a gardener and want to increase the amount of organic matter in your soil, you can do different things like composting, preventing compaction in the soil, and planting more drought-tolerant crops. Those sorts of things reduce the need for water. If you have the opportunity to manage an ecosystem, you can plant more of a native prairie ecosystem with deep-rooting grasses, which is beneficial for the soil, the environment, the wildlife habitat, as well as the diversity of insects and animals. These native grassland ecosystems will also draw down carbon into the soil through the soil microbial activities. If you have even a small piece of land, you can plant some kinds of plants that attract butterflies and other kinds of insects. If you don’t have land, you can absolutely get planter boxes.

What’s giving you hope?

There are some larger initiatives that are giving me hope. The new mandate to keep some swaths of land for wildlife habitat is a very positive sign. Of course, there’s always the counter resistance to those initiatives. But young people are becoming more educated and aware, since it’s going to be their lives that are primarily impacted. So that gives me a lot of hope, that there’s so much passion by younger people to do something to help this situation. 

The post Superorganism Spotlight: Janet Jansson, PhD, on How the Microbes in Soil Could Help Combat Climate Change appeared first on Med-Lock.

The honey bee is one of our most vital insect pollinators, responsible for nearly a third of our global food crops. But widespread pesticide use—along with climate change, disease, and habitat loss—has contributed to a reduction of honey bee populations at an alarming rate. Dr. Brendan Daisley’s research focuses on how beneficial microorganisms can help support agricultural processes and global food security through improving the health of important pollinator insects, such as the honey bee.

Continue exploring conversations about the fascinating world of bacteria and the vital role they could play in saving our planet here. 

If you were meeting someone at a party, how would you describe the work you do?

“I study the microbes that are inside the intestinal tracts of honey bees, and how they can be modulated for health outcomes. Similar to humans, the intestinal tract of honey bees is colonized by a broad range of commensal microbes that play important health roles. When these microbes are disrupted (e.g. from chemical exposures), honey bees become susceptible to many different types of diseases. So we’re trying to reacquire microbial balance in honey bees to ensure their health in the context of agricultural uses and also environmental sustainability.

“When you look at pesticides and other agrochemicals being sprayed on our food products, a big component that isn’t being evaluated is how those agrochemicals are impacting microbes, and specifically the commensal microbes found in animal hosts, and the cascade effects that can have over generations. It ultimately led me to study how probiotics can affect the absorption of these agrochemicals—can they metabolize them so that they don’t pose a threat to human health anymore? 

“Then, there was a logical transition to honey bees, because honey bees are highly exposed to agrochemicals, just given their lifestyle and because beekeepers position their hives close to agricultural crops for pollination purposes. The more I started looking at the microbes associated with honey bees, the more overlaps I saw between humans and honey bees, especially in the context of how much we rely on microbes for our health.”

What does a world without bees look like? 

“It’s a less green world, a world with fewer flowering plants. It’s a lot less vibrant. But ultimately, a world without bees leads to a world with a lot less food. If bees disappear, crops disappear, which ultimately leads to food insecurity. That’s what we’re trying to prevent by maintaining the health of honey bees. The work that we do is trying to improve honey bee microbial balance, which will then impact the greater pollinator assemblage through physical contact at flower patches. It’s a radiating effect. By ensuring honey bees are healthy, it helps ensure that native pollinators are healthy as well.”

Ultimately, a world without bees leads to a world with a lot less food.

Dr. Brendan Daisley

How are you supporting the health of honey bees with probiotics? 

“We’ve been studying three strains. One of the strains is for improving immune function, or resistance to pathogens. Another strain is designed specifically for metabolizing pesticides, or preventing their absorption. And the third strain is a natural honey bee symbiont. It was derived from healthy honey bees, and it’s there for purposes of microbiota restoration. Those are the three components, and they address different aspects of honey bee health, tackling the problem from multiple angles. 

“Overall, we’ve found that these three strains can improve honey bee health in several ways. In honey bee field trials, we’ve shown that the supplementation of these three strains in the BioPatty can improve resistance to American Foulbrood disease, which is a deadly disease to honey bees and can cause rapid colony loss. These three strains also restore the microbiota and help reduce the damage associated with antibiotic exposure. Often, beekeepers will treat their hives with antibiotics to prevent things like American Foulbrood disease. We’ve shown that if you supplement the hive right after antibiotic exposure, it can mitigate a large majority of the deleterious effects that antibiotic exposure causes. We’re currently working on commercialization of these strains so that people can acquire them, since there’s nothing like this on the market.”

How can supporting honey bees with probiotics help combat the effects of climate change?

“Bees are interesting because they physically come into contact with so many things in their ecosystem. They’re a vector for so many microbes—both good and bad. From an evolutionary standpoint, honey bees evolved to pollinate plants. We know this; it’s been studied for a long time. Now we’re just beginning to learn how they can also play a really important role in maintaining a homeostatic microbiome in plants and also within plant communities. So bees have an impact on all different aspects of plant life around them. This can have a radiating effect on multiple levels and ensure a healthier diverse floral environment. And if we’re talking about climate change, more green is better.”

How can people support the health of honey bees?

“The most helpful thing individuals can do is growing and maintaining flowering plants, which are a food source for bees. If they don’t have pesticides sprayed on them, that gives honey bees access to a toxin-free food source. Other than that, it’s important to educate and inform ourselves about the problem. I wrote a review paper last year on deteriorating microbiomes in agriculture, and it talks about how none of the >90,000 pesticide formulations that are currently on the market are regulated or assessed for their impact on microbial life. When looking at an insecticide’s off-target effects on honey bees, they just look at the honey bee tissue itself. So they think, ‘Oh, it doesn’t kill the honey bee after 15 days, let’s just give it a check mark and put it into commercial production.’ But the insidious long-term effects on microbes are really the devastating thing, and can lead to transgenerational effects on honey bee health outcomes.”

What’s giving you hope?

“Science. At the end of the day, I believe that we’ll figure it out. You have to think of how far we’ve come. Just a hundred years ago, we weren’t even considering microbes at all. We didn’t know anything about the human microbiota; we didn’t connect how microbes can lead to different health outcomes. The pace at which science is advancing and our knowledge is expanding is immaculate. I think that we’re going to figure it out. We’re going to connect all of the dots and put the puzzle together, and hopefully be able to reverse some of the damage we’ve caused and make a more sustainable plan going forward. And I believe that that’s probably going to come in the form of learning how to manage microbial populations better.”

The post Superorganism Spotlight: Brendan Daisley, PhD, on Why He Gives Probiotics to Honey Bees  appeared first on Med-Lock.

Corals are integral to the health of the entire ocean ecosystem and beyond. But a host of threats have put coral reefs at risk of worldwide collapse within the next decade. Dr. Raquel Peixoto’s work focuses on supporting coral reefs with beneficial probiotics. She specifically pinpointed key microbial players involved in making corals more tolerant to oceanic temperature change.

Continue exploring conversations about the fascinating world of bacteria and the vital role they could play in saving our planet here.

If you were meeting someone at a party, how would you describe the work you do? 

“I’m developing probiotic medicine to help corals cope with climate change and all of the resulting threats they’re exposed to. Corals—like you—have a microbiome, and certain probiotic species have been shown to help corals fight pathogens, recycle nutrients, clear waste, protect against UV rays, and ameliorate the damage caused by human-induced climate change. So what I do with my team is grow the beneficial bacteria (i.e., probiotics) in the lab, and then we apply them back to corals.”

What does a world without coral reefs look like?

“Corals are the canaries in the coal mine when it comes to the ocean. They are the foundation species of the most sensitive ecosystem—coral reefs—and they are connected to other marine ecosystems that are also affected by human activities. At least one-third of all marine life rely on coral reefs, so if they’re gone, all of these other organisms will also be impacted, which will ultimately impact the other ecosystems that are connected with them. 

“The corals also dissipate some of the energy that comes with the waves, so it’s more likely that coastal countries will be affected by waves and storms. Tourism will also be heavily impacted, especially in countries that rely heavily on the tourism of coral reefs. And even if you live very far from a reef, you’ll be affected because the food web will be impacted—if you think back to that one-third of marine life being impacted. It would be an event with global proportions like Covid, but the difference is that there will be no vaccine. Once corals are gone, they’re gone. So we need to prevent this from happening in the first place.”

Whether we’re talking about the planet or our own microbiomes, we all need to try to be more symbiotic and less pathogenic. And I believe we can.

Dr. Raquel Peixoto

How is climate change affecting corals?

“Seawater temperature increase triggers a cascade of problems inside corals. One example is the symbiotic interaction between the corals and the photosynthetic algae that live within them. With the temperature rise, they start to compete with each other, rather than be symbiotic, and their relationship breaks down. For most shallow reef corals, up to 80% of their energy comes from the photosynthetic algae. When the algae becomes a competitor, the coral has to get rid of them, so they kick them out. This is what’s called ‘coral bleaching,’ because the algae has most of the pigment. 

“The coral also has to cope with the absence of this energy. That means that the coral will continue to be alive for a while, because they can rely on the microbiome and heterotrophic feeding for short periods of time. Once the temperature is back to normal, the algae should return. The thing is that, the time that it takes for the algae to return will actually define whether this coral will die or not. So if it’s a long period of time and the corals are very stressed, they will die before the algae can return. When we think about medicines, it’s a matter of buying time. We need to buy time. We need the coral to stay alive until the temperature is back to normal so that the algae may return. That’s more or less what we’re trying to do with probiotics.

“What you have to keep in mind is that coral bleaching caused by thermal stress is the main problem, but it’s not the only problem. There are lots of other pressures, like overfishing and pollution. All of these local impacts will maximize the problems caused by global warming. So the solution to actually save coral reefs is to minimize CO2 emissions and to minimize and mitigate local pollution. But even if we do all that, we still need to work on active restoration of the coral reefs because of the current degradation of the reefs. We have already damaged it beyond what the reef is capable of handling, and we have emitted CO2 that will continue to cause annual bleaching events, even if we stop the emissions right now.”

Why, exactly, do corals need probiotics?

“When corals are impacted by climate change, there are two things that they have to cope with: 1.) The absence of beneficial bacteria, and 2.) the presence of pathogens that are now more competitive in the reef. By helping corals retain the beneficial bacteria, we occupy the niche and promote competition, which means that the pathogens will have difficulty colonizing corals. We also keep providing them with the benefits that the holobiont needs. 

“This is the same for corals, for humans, for fish, for frogs, etc.—all of them, when exposed to stress, may experience negative impacts on the microbiome. Microbes can also be sensitive to stress. We rely on our microbiome, all of us. The microbial ecology of our guts and our bodies is very important because if we manage to retain the beneficial bacteria, they will fight pathogens, which supports our health. It’s a matter of ecology. Even if the bacterial groups are not the same across these different hosts, the principle is the same.”

How do you get the probiotics to the corals?

“We’ve been developing several different approaches to that. We started delivering probiotics manually and applying them with syringes to prove the concept and also have a well-controlled way to deliver it. But in parallel, we’re developing bacterial pills. These encapsulations that we deliver to the reef release bacteria slowly and continuously. They work similarly to nicotine patches. We’ve also developed an automated dispenser called Coral AI that works like an irrigation system you’d have in your backyard. We program the irrigation system, and it delivers the bacteria to the reef. We can keep that system there for weeks without having to go back to the reef. 

“Right now, we’re testing these in the reef for the first time, so we are translating a lot of the knowledge we gained in the lab into the real world. We’re trying the first pilot tests of these systems in the reef in a very well-controlled way, and the delivery systems are working. So now we have to see if they are actually beneficial for the reef. 

“We’re testing these in what we’re calling the Coral Probiotics Village, an underwater city that we established in the Red Sea. We have gates and streets and a map with all of the corals we’ve been inoculating. We started tagging corals and connecting them with roads to save time so that we could easily find the next colony that needs to be inoculated. We’ve been using the street names to locate ourselves in the water. It’s a very well-monitored place—we go to the Coral Probiotics Village at least three times a week every week and have been monitoring the environment and non-target organisms as well.” 

How can people support the work you do? 

“One thing everyone can do is raise awareness and pressure stakeholders to take action. We can do this every time we choose our representatives and every time we use social media. Be an advocate for corals and an advocate for biodiversity overall. Of course, we can improve our individual lifestyles and contribute by balancing our carbon footprints, but I think there needs to be a way bigger effort. We need to use our power to guide companies and governments to do what’s right, and that needs to be done now. That sense of urgency is something that we need to advocate for. We know what has to be done, and we know how to do it; we now need stakeholders to take action.”

What’s giving you hope?

“Every single action matters a lot. You have to continue to feel motivated because, while you are one person, you can influence other people, and you can spread the benefits of doing what you’re doing. You set an important example for younger generations, and you put economic pressure on stakeholders to be more sustainable. 

“At the end of the day, it’s a matter of ecology. It’s a matter of maintaining balance at all the different levels, from the microbiome that lives within us to the way we interact with the ecosystems. It’s all a matter of symbiosis. Whether we’re talking about the planet or our own microbiomes, we all need to try to be more symbiotic and less pathogenic. And I believe we can—we can be more symbiotic.”

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