Laura Villanueva

I study the membranes that surround microbes. A microorganism’s membrane is effectively its skin. Changes in these membranes can tell something about the climate under which the organism is living or has lived. This offers many interesting possibilities. By searching for fossils of membranes in seafloors – the lipid molecules from these membranes can remain intact for millions of years – we can learn what the sea temperature was in a certain period. Ultimately, this research could contribute to understanding the earth’s climate in the past and therefore to prognoses for the climate of the future.