P. Lòpez-Garcìa

By studying microbial diversity and evolution, Purificaciòn Lòpez-Garcìa strives to enrich our knowledge of the evolution of life on Earth. After a spell at the University of Alicante in Spain, she joined the Ecology, Systematics and Evolution laboratory at Orsay as a research fellow in 2002. Combining high-throughput molecular approaches and the exploration of often extreme environments (deep oceans, alkaline lakes, deserts, oxygen-deprived ecosystems, etc.), her research has led to the discovery of new lineages of micro-organisms, both prokaryotic and eukaryotic. Promoted to research director in 2007, Purificaciòn is also an associate member of Belgium’s Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts. In 2012, she was awarded an ERC Advanced Grant for the ProtistWorld project on the evolution of eukaryotic microorganisms in oxygen-poor environments. In 2016, she and her team explored the Dallol hydrothermal site in Ethiopia, in search of the limits of life in one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet.