Dr. Natália Lussari Vrech

Project

The major part of Earth’s biome is located more than 1000m below sea level, where organisms have to endure pressures of several thousand atmospheres. Some theories even place the origin of life to deep-sea hydrothermal vents, where early life forms would have been shielded from the harmful radiation of the young sun. However, it is known that proteins, the basic building blocks of organisms, tend to unfold and lose their function at such high pressures. Hence, the question arises how deep-sea organisms resist pressure at the molecular level. The apparent contradiction between the prevalence of life in abysmal oceal depths on the one hand and the instability of proteins at high pressure on the other hand challenge our understanding of the fundamental laws of life described in biochemistry text books. In this project, computational methods will be used to simulate the structural, energetic and electronic properties of biologically relevant (macro)molecules under high pressure. The fundamental insights gained through these simulations will allow us to test the feasibility of chemical reactions in the deep sea, and, most importantly, the way in which they differ from the corresponding reactions above sea level.

We gratefully acknowledge funding by the Boehringer Ingelheim foundation.