Date |
2:00pm Nov 01, 2019 |
Speaker |
Matthew B. Sullivan
Professor,
Ohio State University, USA
Matt is an pioneer of viral ecogenomics and has been leading the viral
studies of the Tara Oceans consortium
|
Title |
Viruses of microbes: lessons from the oceans, soils and humans
|
Abstract |
Microbes are recently recognized as driving the energy and nutrient
transformations that fuel Earth’s ecosystems in soils, oceans and
humans. Where studied, viruses appear to modulate these microbial
impacts in ways ranging from mortality and nutrient recycling to
extensive metabolic reprogramming during infection. As environmental
virology strives to get a handle on the global virosphere (the diversity
of viruses in nature), we face challenges to organize this ‘sequence
space’ (create a sequence-based viral taxonomy), link these viruses to
their natural hosts (who infects whom), and establish how virus
populations are structured (ecological drivers) and impact natural
ecosystems (their impacts). Here I will share current thinking on how to
study viruses in complex communities and how these efforts are revealing
new biology in the oceans, soils and the clinic that will help enable a
new generation of eco-systems biology and medical treatments. |
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