Laura Eme

picture Laura Eme
  • Associate Professor
  • Phone: 401.874.2609
  • Email: laura.eme@uri.edu
  • Office Location: CBLS 293

Biography

I aim to understand eukaryotic origins through a combination of top-down (from the eukaryotic perspective) and bottom-up (from the prokaryotic perspective) approaches. From a methodological perspective, I aim to combine classical approaches (protist isolation, culturing, microscopy) with state-the-art molecular biology techniques, sequencing, proteomics, molecular evolution (ancestral sequence reconstruction, species tree/gene tree reconciliation, sophisticated phylogenomics) and structural bioinformatics.

Research

My primary research interests are in evolutionary microbiology. I have a strong background in bioinformatics and molecular phylogenetics, and I have examined fundamental problems related to the origin, evolution, and genome biology of eukaryotes. I have broad interests in evolutionary biology, with an emphasis on:
(i) the archaeal ancestry of eukaryotes,
(ii) the origin and evolution of mitochondria,
(iii) the origin and evolution of key eukaryotic cellular systems (e.g. involved in cell division, membrane trafficking),
(iv) the role of symbiosis and horizontal gene transfer in eukaryotic evolution, and
(v) the age of major eukaryotic evolutionary transitions.

Education

● Postdoctoral Fellow, Uppsala University (Sweden), 2017-2018
● Postdoctoral Fellow, Dalhousie University (Canada), 2012-2016
● Ph.D., Aix-Marseille University (France), 2008-2011

Selected Publications

Moreira D, Blaz J, Kim E, Eme L (2024). A gene-rich mitochondrion with a unique ancestral protein transport system. Current Biology Volume 34, Issue 16, 3812 – 3819.e3

Baker BA, Gutierrez-Preciado A, Rodriguez del Rio A, McCarthy C, Lopez-Garcia P, Huerta-Cepas J, Susko E, Roger AJ, Eme L*, Moreira D* (2024). Several independent adaptations of archaea to hypersaline environments. Nature Microbiology 9 (4), 964-975.

Blaz J, Galindo LJ, Heiss AA, Kaur H, Torruella G, Yang A, … & Eme L. (2023). One high-quality genome and two transcriptome datasets for new species of Mantamonas, a deep-branching eukaryote clade. Scientific Data 10 (1), 603.

van Hooff JJE, Raas MWD, Tromer EC, Eme L (2024). Shaping up genomes: Prokaryotic roots and eukaryotic diversification of SMC complexes. bioRxiv.

Eme L*, Tamarit D*, Caceres EF*, …, Ettema TJG (2023). Inference and reconstruction of the heimdallarchaeial ancestry of eukaryotes. Nature, (2023) Jun 14:1-8.

Eme L, Spang A, Lombard J, Stairs CW, Ettema TJG (2018). Archaea and the origin of eukaryotes.
Nature Reviews in Microbiology, 15(12), 711-723.

Lax G*, Eglit Y*, Eme L*, Bertrand E, Roger AJ, Simpson AGB. Hemimastigophora is a novel suprakingdom-level lineage of Eukaryotes. Nature. 2018 Nov 14:1.

Eme L, Sharpe SC, Brown MW, Roger AJ (2014). On the age of eukaryotes: evaluating evidence from fossils and molecular clocks. Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology, 6(8), p.a016139.

Eme L, Gentekaki E, Curtis B, Archibald JM, Roger AJ (2017). Lateral gene transfer in the adaptation of the anaerobic parasite Blastocystis to the gut. Current Biology, 27(6), pp.807-820.