The destruction of natural habitats and the subsequent loss of biodiversity is a major global challenge. As a 2024 Schmidt Science Fellow, Claudia will use an evolutionary approach to help us better protect biodiversity.
She will study the cellular mechanisms that allow organisms to live together in a mutually beneficial manner, a biological phenomenon called symbiosis.
Questions that will be addressed will include: How do organisms from different species find each other? How do they adjust their molecular infrastructures to foster this interaction? And how can we protect them?
Interdisciplinary Pivot: Neuroscience to Evolutionary Biology