EAM

Prof Elizaveta Bonch-Osmolovskaya has led the laboratory of hyperthermophilic microbial communities at the Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology in Moscow over the past 20 years. Her lab has organized numerous expeditions to the regions of hydrothermal and volcanic activity, as well as to rift zone regions, such as Kamchatka, Kuril Island, Baikal Lake and has participated in several international cruises to deep-sea hydrothermal areas.

Elizaveta’s lab has also studied deep-subsurface microbial communities of Siberia and South Africa. During these years many new thermophilic archaea and bacteria were isolated and characterized. These represent new taxa, including those of high rank (new phyla, classes, orders). Their main interest has always focused on microorganisms with unusual types of catabolism: anaerobic CO- and formate-utilizing prokaryotes producing hydrogen from water, microorganisms reducing diverse inorganic electron acceptors or disproportionating sulfur compounds.

She is also a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the President of the Russian Miсrobiological Society.