Why Microbes?

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Microbes—tiny microorganisms such as bacteria, archaea, and fungi, sustain all life on Earth. For over 3.8 billion years, these organisms have formed the foundation of the biosphere, surviving in extremes of heat, cold, radiation, pressure, salt, acidity, and darkness. With their ability to harvest energy in almost any form, and thrive with or without oxygen, microbes have spent over a billion years making nitrogen available to plants while transforming the atmosphere with oxygen. By adapting to such a wide range of environmental conditions, microbes have shown that they already know how to solve many of the problems faced by today’s scientists. The capabilities of the microbial world can now be studied and applied to national needs using DNA sequencing and other molecular biology tools.

 

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