When you think about doing something revolutionary, are you thinking about climate change?

Yes, for me. My lab looks at methane. In general, greenhouse gases are kind of a focus area in terms of production and consumption from microbes. We’re trying to contextualize microbes in terms of permafrost and rumen [the stomach compartment in animals such as cattle that contains the microorganisms responsible for digestion and the part of the animal where methane is produced].

But it goes beyond that. There’s also this part about microbes and their hosts — the environment that the hosts exist in are changing. And it turns out how well organisms adapt to their changing environment could come back to their microbiomes. There’s this idea that our gut microbiomes and skin microbiomes have this buffering capacity that allows organisms to adapt. There’s also disease resistance; viral loads are going up because of warming, and there’s this question of whether a microbiome can confer resistance over time to disease.

So, my interest is on the greenhouse gas consumption and production side, but there are these really cool spaces that other folks are interested in too. We’re living this experiment right now, right? So, it’s a young field in that sense. But there are all these dimensions of the microbiome that we’re starting to appreciate when we talk about a changing climate.

What’s the goal of your work and microbiome science more broadly? Where is this work all headed?

The goal is engineered solutions — there are just so many dimensions of it. I generally work on the side of microbes as engines. They put out these greenhouse gases, and they consume these greenhouse gases, and if we understand that metabolic circuitry — whether it’s in the permafrost or in the rumen — then we can discuss how to quantify it better or how to control it.

I’d really like to get past this kind of thinking that this is too complicated to understand and get to a place where we can accurately reflect the biochemical diversity and the nuance of the environment and how it controls what microbes produce. The whole point is to build a better predictive understanding so that we can have a framework and a chassis that we can manipulate. But the only way we’re going to get there is if we actually understand how something works.

Is microbiome science already reshaping some of the questions researchers ask related to climate change?

I think so. But it’s a balance. As someone who is in the field, I want to be careful not to make it a panacea. We’re doing a lot of work in agricultural systems — trying to come up with new indicators of health. When we think about soil health, we can measure organic carbon or we can measure other features, but those are all derived from microbes. So, there’s this idea that microbes might be these canaries in the coal mine — and if we could unlock and decode them, we might be able to predict the resiliency or outcome of an ecosystem at an earlier stage. We’re trying to build that infrastructure now.

What are the exciting things you think we’ll see in the next five years as far as microbiome science contributing to climate change solutions?

I definitely think we’re going to see microbiome interventions in the rumen in the next five years, whether they’re diet or chemical or biological. I also think there’s a lot of interest in reprogramming soils to enhance sequestration. A lot of these systems store a huge amount of carbon already, like grasslands. Two-thirds of the land on this planet is grasslands, and a third of the carbon is in that system — so, how do we keep more of it in that system? But I think that’s 10 years. What the rumen has that makes it so special is they have 30 years of amazing physiology work; they’ve done the hard mechanistic work. We’re just developing that with soils.

People who work in marine systems understand marine microbes. But I don’t think that’s permeated the news yet. My mom understands the permafrost is thawing; my mom is not aware that marine microbes produce 50 percent of the oxygen on this planet. These land plants, they get all the credit! But microbes are out there in marine systems performing the same role as the plants, but they’re single cells. With oceans warming, animals dying, and animals ranges being extended, I think there will be a greater appreciation for the role microbes can play in terms of producing solutions in that space.

It sounds like there’s a lot of opportunity there.

We really are trying to change the narrative in climate microbiology. I’d like to move past this assumption that it’s a black box. How can we engineer anything if we don’t understand the underlying wiring and plumbing? I think that will lead to better solutions. I’m trying to be deliberate about the spaces we go after. But I’m super excited.