Dorrell Lab

Research focus

ERC Starting Grant · 2021

Environmentally-informed functional characterisation of the secondary red chloroplast proteome

Photosynthesis in the ocean is as significant as that of land plants, and is performed by a wide range of cyanobacteria and eukaryotic algae, the most abundant of which have originated through the secondary endosymbioses of red algae. Previously, I have shown that these "secondary red chloroplasts" are evolutionary mosaics, supported by nucleus-encoded proteins of symbiont, host and horizontally acquired origin; and that the most successful of these groups (diatoms, haptophytes and dinoflagellates) are connected to one another via chloroplast endosymbioses. My research programme will answer a question of fundamental importance to the evolutionary history, and future ecology of the planet:…

From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.