Simonetta Gribaldo

The Negativicutes are a poorly studied lineage of bacteria that include common inhabitants of the human oral and gut microbiome such as the anaerobe Veillonella, and which can also develop into opportunistic pathogens. Despite […]

The Archaea represent an understudied but important fraction of microbial diversity present in a wide variety of environments and ecosystems, including the human body. They have key ecological roles and a unique place in […]

https://www.fondationbs.org/en/our-community/laureates-and-projects/simonetta-gribaldo

The Archaea are growingly gaining centre stage in the field of prokaryotic diversity and evolution. Yet, with respect to Bacteria, many fundamental cellular processes remain largely understudied. Most Archaea divide by binary fission using […]

Iron-sulfur (Fe-S) clusters are ancient and ubiquitous protein cofactors essential for life. It is thought that Fe-S clusters spontaneously assembled in the early Earth anaerobic environment rich in iron and sulfur. Rise of oxygen […]

Alterations of the gut microbiota are associated with numerous diseases, of which many involve impaired immune tolerance, such as allergies. However, the role of specific microorganisms and underlying molecular mechanisms remain poorly characterised. Archaeal […]

The Archaea are largely known as microorganisms thriving in extreme environments, but are in fact ubiquitouly found in nature. Importantly, archaeal methanogens are also stable members of the human gastrointestinal tract (GIT), where they […]

The outer membrane (OM) is an essential element in Gram-negative (diderm) bacteria. Its integrity is maintained by the control of lipids asymmetry via LPS and phospholipids transport by the Lpt and Mla systems, respectively. […]

Methanogenic archaea are phylogenetically diverse, ancient and environmentally widespread. They are common inhabitants of the gastrointestinal tract of humans and other animals, and produce methane, a potent green-house gas, as a metabolic by-product. Despite […]

The bacterial envelope is one of the oldest and most essential cellular components, being involved in key housekeeping functions, such as physical integrity, cell division, motility, substrate uptake and secretion, and cell-cell communication. It […]

The quality of multiple sequence alignments plays an important role in the accuracy of phylogenetic inference. It has been shown that removing ambiguously aligned regions, but also other sources of bias such as highly […]