Nicole Dubilier

Nicole Dubilier is an internationally renowned marine microbiologist. Her special area of interest is the study of symbiosis, in which she studies ecological and evolutionary adaptations between bacteria and marine invertebrates. She finds the objects of her research on expeditions to deep-sea hydrothermal vents as well as more easily accessible seagrass meadows and sulphide-rich coastal sediments.

The common feature of all these habitats is the low availability of energy and nutrients, which forces the host organisms to use organic carbon compounds produced by their bacterial symbionts through a process of chemosynthesis. In the gutless worm Olavius algarvensis, Dubilier discovered a particularly complex symbiotic relationship with two classes of bacterial partners. The sulphide produced by the secondary symbionts through the reduction of sulphate is used by the primary symbionts as an energy source to fix the vital carbon.

Through this and other discoveries, for example relating to mollusks, whose symbiotic relationship with sulphur- and methane-oxidising bacteria enables high productivity, Dubilier has generated new insights into the dependencies of symbiotic organisms and the way in which marine organisms obtain energy.