“Mummies” tummies to reveal digestive evolution
Dr. Ainara Sistiaga from the Summons Lab was recently interviewed by Horizon Magazine on the evolution of human diets. By studying mummies, researchers want to establish how our gut bacteria has changed over time. Image credit – ‘MNH – Mumie Frau 1’ by Wolfgang Sauber is licenced under CC-S.A 3.0 Mummified bodies from Egypt and […]
48-Million-Year-Old Wax Discovered in a Bird Fossil
(The photographs above showing the location (a) and detail of the preserved uropygial gland (b: before sampling in the unprepared fossil; c: after sampling in the prepared fossil.) A recent study by postdoc fellow Shane O’Reilly from Summons Lab on fossil organic molecules provides palaeontologists with important new insight into how animal soft […]
The Summons Lab bids farewell to a talented lab member and welcomes several new members
Dr. Xiaolei Liu has been a postdoctoral associate and a research scientist in Roger’s lab for the last 3 years. Xiaolei received his PhD degree at the University of Bremen with Dr. Kai-Uwe Hinrichs. Afterwards, he continued in the same lab before joining the Summons Lab in 2014. Xiaolei has contributed significantly to this lab […]
Latest Summons Lab Research
The front cover of the latest issue of Journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology featured the research work from Summons Lab on the synthesis of methylated hopanoids by cyanobacterium Nostoc punctiforme ATCC 29133S. This work discovered that by deleting the hpnP gene, Nostoc Punctiforme is not able to synthesize all 2-methylhopanoids, however, it produces much higher […]
Summons Lab Latest Research Highlights
Summons Lab recent research features two publications in Nature and PNAS with funding support from the Simons Foundation Origins of Life Collaboration program. Recently, David Gold published his paper entitled “Paleoproterozoic sterol biosynthesis and the rise of oxygen” in Nature. Sterol biosynthesis signals aerobic metabolic processes by eukaryotes. However, there has been debates on the earliest […]
Summons Lab 2017 Retreat
Summons Lab group retreat was held in Jackson, NH. This lab retreat brought together most of current lab members and a former lab member, Shane O’Reilly. Everyone shared their on-going research, all with common objectives in attempting to better understand earth history. Topics were broad and spanned origin of life to modern biogeochemical processes. The […]
The Summons Lab bids farewell to several talented and valuable lab members!
Dr. Ross Williams has been a PhD researcher in Roger’s lab for the last 5 years. Ross recently received his PhD degree in Geochemistry at MIT. His research focus has been on paleoenvironment reconstruction in extreme climates ranging from Early Cenozoic lignite deposits in India to modern day high elevation lakes of the Chilean Altiplano. […]
GRC Organic Geochemistry meeting 2016 in Holderness, NH
The Gordon Research Conference Organic Geochemistry meeting was held at Holderness School in Holderness, New Hampshire from July 24th – July 29th, 2016. The conference was chaired by Anne Pearson, and Lloyd Snowdon served as the vice chair. Many who attend this meeting will agree that the quality of science and unique “campy” experience in […]
Latest Summons Lab Research
From the origin’s of complex life to the timing of oxygen’s first appearance in the atmosphere, the Summons lab has published a number of exciting and important papers in recent weeks. David recently published his combined biomarker and genomic study in PNAS. Here, he presented conclusive evidence that sea sponges were indeed the source of the […]
Cambridge Science Festival!
The Cambridge Science Festival is fast approaching us! Starting on Friday April 15th, the festival is an annual 10-day celebration of science, technology, engineering, art and math in Cambridge and beyond. Collaborators for the festival include MIT, Harvard University, the City of Cambridge and the Museum of Science. Every spring, the festival makes science accessible, […]
