Microbial & Environmental Genomics

Overview

The world around us is largely inhabited and maintained by a vast army of unseen microorganisms. Until the advent of genomics tools we were unaware of just how prevalent and important these organisms were to life on our planet. While much work has been done in trying to understand this microbial world, the surface has only been scratched. Since our sequencing of the first free-living bacterium, Haemophilus influenza, JCVI scientists have been leading the field of microbial genomics.

Today, we've sequenced more than 100 organisms and are now blazing new trails in environmental genomics having completed a circumnavigation of the world's oceans as part of the Global Ocean Sampling Expedition uncovering more than 60 million genes as a result of this project. Our researchers have also conducted environmental surveys of the human body, cataloguing the bacteria and viruses that thrive in various body cavities. From deep sea ocean vents, air above New York City, soils in Panamanian jungles to the human mouth and gut, JCVI researchers are modern day explorers of this microbial-driven world.

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