Betül Kaçar

tell me any protein you love and I'll tell you, we have no idea how it originated on this planet.

And that's a huge knowledge gap.

But these questions inevitably led us to understand, create a new paradigm between the planet and microbiology, which I like to refer to as planetary microbiology.

How does the microbe and bacteria and eukaryotes, how do they dance with the planet?

Biology needs to completely transform itself

and really evaluate molecules and cells and organisms from the perspective of the planet.

We need to understand the planetary boundaries that constrain life in order to understand and maybe create a better future for ourselves as well, because we rely on these organisms.

How do I begin to explain myself?

Well, in my very biased opinion, it's a bacteria that escaped the metabolic trap and bacteria that got very, very lazy.

It's basically, I would say, the next points in evolution.

They are about 1.8 billion years old.

They have more organelles, more complexity.

They are our ancestor.

And so our ancestors are 1.8 billion years old.

We are eukaryotes.

Plants are eukaryotes.

They have a nucleus.

They have more complex organelles.

More going on, exactly.

There's a lot more going on.