Paula Welander is an Assistant Professor of Earth System Science at Stanford University. Her lab is focused on lipid biomarker studies in modern bacteria, specifically hopanoids and sterols. On her page she discusses the interest in lipids preserved in the rock record and how they might be signatures of early life, however we know little of evolutionary history and function of these molecules in modern bacteria. Without a fuller understanding of the function and history of these molecules in the 'here and now' it becomes difficult to interpret what we are seeing in the rock record. Her lab aims to fill this gap.
So let's learn about some 'fat' microbes.
