Dr Joanne Boden
Research Fellow
Research areas
I am interested in the co-evolution of Earth and life over timescales of hundreds of millions of years. I study this using bioinformatic tools (such as phylogenetic analyses, bayesian molecular clocks, microbial culture, genome assembly and gene-tree-species-tree reconciliation) to recover signals of past life in microbial genomes. These signals help to time the emergence of key metabolisms (such as antioxidant enzymes, iron transporters) and life hitsory strategies (e.g. the transition from unicellular to multiclelular morphologies), which go some way towards explaining how ancestral life-forms interacted with what would seem to us as ancient and unfamiliar planetary environments (e.g. periods of extreme cold and eras with "toxic" anoxic global atmospheres). Much of my research in the past has used cyanobacteria as model organisms, but I am now broadening this field to look at the utilisation of phosphorous molecules by diverse bacteria and archaea spanning the entire tree of life.
Selected publications
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Open access
Timing the evolution of phosphorus-cycling enzymes through geological time using phylogenomics
Boden, J., Zhong, J., Anderson, R. & Stueeken, E. E., 2 May 2024, In: Nature Communications. 15, 12 p., 3703.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
The evolution and spread of sulfur cycling enzymes reflect the redox state of the early Earth
Mateos, K., Chappell, G., Klos, A., Le, B., Boden, J., Stüeken, E. & Anderson, R., 7 Jul 2023, In: Science Advances. 9, 27, 11 p., eade4847.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
On the trail of iron uptake in ancestral Cyanobacteria on early Earth
Enzingmüller-Bleyl, T. C., Boden, J. S., Herrmann, A. J., Ebel, K. W., Sánchez-Baracaldo, P., Frankenberg-Dinkel, N. & Gehringer, M. M., 30 Jul 2022, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Geobiology. Early View, 14 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review