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Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
idw - Informationsdienst
Wissenschaft
In biology, three domains of cellular life are known: eukaryotes – including humans – bacteria and archaea. A research team within the Excellence Cluster “Balance of the Microverse” at Friedrich Schiller University Jena is now setting out to search for a possible transitional form between eukaryotes and prokaryotes, which could potentially constitute a fourth domain of life. From today, 1 August 2025, the Volkswagen Foundation will support this high gain high risk pioneering endeavour over the next five years with about 1.4 million euros.
“Research is always the search for the unknown, but there are different kinds of unknown,” explains Professor Christian Jogler, Professor of Microbial Interactions at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, and continues: “On one hand, there is the known unknown – that which we know exists but have yet to understand, like dark matter in astrophysics. Much harder to grasp is the unknown unknown, of which we do not even know it exists. Discovering such an unknown unknown leads to truly significant paradigm shifts in science, just as the discovery once did that the sun and not Earth is in the centre of our solar system.”
As a microbiological example, Jogler cites predatory prokaryotes – that is, nucleus-free microbes that hunt other bacteria as food. According to the scientific consensus at the time, such hunting behaviour was thought to be reserved for eukaryotes, namely cells with a nucleus. Because this was regarded as settled fact, no one searched for predatory prokaryotes. Nevertheless, in 2024, Professor Jogler’s team succeeded in finding and describing such a bacterium off the coast of Heligoland.
A microbial Archaeopteryx?
But how does one search deliberately for something which is unknown? “Thought experiments are helpful here: we postulate that there must once have been a transitional form between prokaryotes and the more complex eukaryotes – in effect, a microbial Archaeopteryx,” the microbiologist explains. Just as Archaeopteryx exhibited features of both dinosaurs and modern birds, the microbes we hypothesise should display characteristics of both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. “The comparison with Archaeopteryx also highlights the risk of this search,” Jogler adds. “After all, it is extinct. It might happen that we find nothing – either because this organism no longer exists or because it never existed in the first place.” It is precisely this combination of uncertainty and the potential for groundbreaking discovery that qualifies the project for five-year funding under the Volkswagen Foundation’s “Pioneering Research – Explorations of the Unknown Unknown” programme.
In addition to seeking the link between prokaryotes and eukaryotes, the project team aims to approach the very origin of cellular life as closely as possible. To this end, the researchers propose, under the 4D hypothesis, the existence of a fourth domain of life, which they term “Planctomycia”.
New technologies for microbiology
To achieve these ambitious goals, Professor Jogler’s group is developing a wholly new technique, called microscale microbiology. “With this method, we can observe, manipulate and genetically characterise individual bacterial cells directly, without relying on time-consuming cultivation procedures,” Jogler explains. In the long term, the technology could also find applications in medical diagnostics, for instance by enabling the rapid determination of the optimal antibiotic therapy for infectious diseases.
Prof. Dr Christian Jogler
Institute of Microbiology of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Neugasse 24
07743 Jena
phone: (+49) 03641 / 949301
email: christian.jogler@uni-jena.de
https://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/en/funding/funding-offer/pioneering-research-e...
Microbiologist Prof. Dr. Christian Jogler receives funding from the Volkswagen Foundation for a pion ...
Source: (image: Jens Meyer / Uni Jena)
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