Dr. Sammy Pontrelli

In my research, I aim to apply a variety of metabolomic techniques to understand how and why metabolites are exchanged among members of marine microbial ecosystems. These bacterial communities play a fundamental role in degradation of particulate organic matter in marine environments, and subsequently in recycling elements at the global scale. This organic matter consists of fecal pellets, decaying organisms and biologically produced polysaccharides. Our understanding of the metabolic and trophic relationships between bacterial community members is still at its infancy. Studying metabolic exchanges will allow us to gain insight into how microbial ecosystems function, what roles are carried by individual bacterial species, and how they may respond to environmental perturbations or resource fluctuations.

I began my postdoc in Uwe Sauer’s lab in September 2018, and work as a part of a larger PriME collaboration (Principles in Microbial Ecosystems). Before coming to Zurich, I received my PhD from UCLA in Chemical Engineering from James C. Liao’s lab. I also received a BS/MS from Santa Clara University in Bioengineering.