Nicole Dubilier

Nicole Dubilier is a marine microbiologist and director of the Symbiosis Department at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology since 2013 and a Professor of Microbial Symbioses at the University of Bremen. She is a pioneer in ecological and evolutionary symbiotic relationships between sea animals and their microbial partners inhabiting environments that harbour low nutrient concentrations. She was responsible for the discovery of a new form of symbiosis between two kinds of bacteria and the marine oligochaete Olavius algarvensis.

Early life Born in New York City to an American industrialist father and German immigrant mother, Nicole Dubilier initially focused on ballet. In 1970, she was accepted into the Stuttgart Ballet company after childhood success with The Royal Ballet alongside Rudolf Nureyev. Due to her parents' divorce earlier that year, Dubilier declined the offer to remain with her mother and three younger brothers in Wiesbaden, Germany. Initially intending to join the Hessian State Ballet, Dubilier ultimately chose to quit ballet and continue her education. She decided to pursue marine biology based on her experiences visiting her father each summer in Fire Island Pines, New York. Later, from 1993–1995, she experienced her first Post-doc with the guidance of Colleen Cavanaugh on hydrothermal vents chemosynthetic life forms. Two years later, she started her career at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology (MPI-MM), first as a Postdoc studying the Evolution of bacterial symbiosis in gutless worms (1997–2001) and afterwards as the Coordinator of the MPI-MM International Research Program (2002–2017), Head of the Symbiosis Laboratory (2001–2017) and the Head of the Symbiosis Department (since 2013). Dubilier has continued her work on symbiotic relationships within chemosynthetic living organisms, expanding her exploration of both shallow and deep-sea environments, ranging from seagrass to coastal sediments, through meta-omic approaches, e.g. metaproteomics and metagenomics. Her primary animal models constitute of shrimp, gutless-worms, nematodes, and ciliates.

Awards and honors 2009 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) Applied and Environmental Microbiology Chapter 2013 Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Marine Microbiology Initiative Award 2014 German Research Foundation Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize 2018 Elected member of European Molecular Biology Organization 2019 Plymouth Marine Science Medal Lecture 2020 Excellence Professor Award of the Petersen Foundation 2025 American Society for Microbiology Interdisciplinary Research Award Since 2013 Elected member at the American Academy of Microbiology Since 2020 President of the International Society of Microbial Ecology

Selected publications