Antje Boetius

Antje Boetius (born 5 March 1967) is a German marine biologist presently serving as professor of geomicrobiology at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, University of Bremen.^[1] She received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, with 2.5 million euros in funding, in March 2009 for her study of sea bed microorganisms that affect the global climate.^[2] She was the first person to describe anaerobic oxidation of methane,^[2] and believes the Earth's earliest life forms may have subsisted on methane in the absence of molecular oxygen (instead reducing oxygen-containing compounds such as nitrate or sulfate).^[3] She has also suggested such life forms may be able to reduce the rate of climate change in future.^[3]

Boetius received her biology degree from the University of Hamburg in 1992,^[4] her doctorate in biology from the University of Bremen in 1996,^[4] became an Assistant Professor in 2001^[4] and an Associate Professor in 2003.^[4] Her research interests are in the marine methane cycle, the ecology of chemosynthetic habitats, microbial processes of early diagenesis in deep-sea sediments, pressure and temperature effects on microbial processes, microbial symbiosis, geomicrobiology and the global carbon cycle.^[1][4] In addition to her current role as Professor of Geomicrobiology, which she has held since March 2009,^[5] she is also leader of the HGF-MPG Bridge Group on Deep Sea Ecology and Technology^[5] and leader of the "Microbial Habitat Group" that researches biogeochemistry, transport processes and microbial processes in benthic environments.^[5]

Mission Medico describe her interests as "La bonne cuisine, le bon vin, la bonne compagnie, la bonne musique, la mode et la vie citadine" ((in French) "Good food, good wine, good company, good music, fashion and city life").^[6]

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