Nicola Fantom

Nicola Fantom

Profile

My research interests stem from studying environmental microbiology as part of my undergraduate degree and a personal interest in the natural world, including how bacteria can survive and thrive in extreme environments.

My academic background is in biology; I studied for a BSc Biology degree at the University of Southampton and spent a year in industry working for a small biotech. After graduating I spent four years as Laboratory Manager for a small biotech developing personalised cancer treatments, whilst going to night school part-time for my MSc in microbiology at Birkbeck College, University of London where my thesis project involved looking at Streptomyces bacteria for novel antibiotics.

Nicola Fantom

PhD title: Do trace gas oxidising bacteria help build soil on volcanic rock?

How do bacteria grow on pristine volcanic rock? How do they establish communities, and what role does trace-gas metabolism play? To answer these questions, I will be using soil samples from Chilean volcanoes to determine the role of trace-gas metabolising bacteria in soil formation, focusing on carbon monoxide (CO) but also considering methane (CH4) and hydrogen (H2). Through characterising the microbial community present in these samples, I aim to identify which classes of bacteria are present and their capacity for trace-gas metabolism and therefore understand their impact on the development of volcanic soils at both a community and a molecular level.