Topics

About this talk

Science Week 2026 event featuring talks on interactions at microscopic scales. 6pm: Welcome & PhD student prize giving & presentation. 6:15pm: Science Week Talks & Q&A. 7:15pm: Posterboard exhibition, lab tours & social reception. Dr Keyron Hickman-Lewis will discuss how we reconstruct interactions between microbial life and the environment in deep time, focusing on examples of microbial fossils from more than 3 billion years ago from the geological records of South Africa and Western Australia. He will explore the use of a range of techniques, both microscopic and spectroscopic, in the lab and at national synchrotron radiation facilities, to study the nature of these ancient fossils, how they interacted with their environments, and how these important pieces fit into the very incomplete puzzle of Earth's earliest history. Dr. Hickman-Lewis is a Lecturer at Birkbeck. His research focuses on life detection in geological materials using a range of laboratory- and synchrotron-based approaches. He is also a participant on the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission with the objective of searching for traces of life and habitable environments on Mars. Dr Brian Ho will explore "warfare in the bacterial world". During the billions of years since bacteria emerged on our planet they have evolved to survive in the harshest environments on Earth. Recently however (geologically speaking), a new frontier has emerged, shielded from harmful radiation, ripe with plentiful nutrients, and stabilized temperatures: the animal gut. As microbes of all sorts rush to colonize these fertile new lands, armed conflict has arisen as they attempt to edge each other out for resources. But, in the wake of these battles, the very ground they seek to inhabit begins to fight back. Now, with this looming threat, new weapons are forged, alliances formed, and strategies devised, giving rise to the complex web of interactions underpinning life in multi-species microbial communities. Dr. Ho has been a Lecturer at Birkbeck since 2019. His research investigates the molecular mechanism of cell-cell interactions within bacterial communities. In particular, he is interested in how antagonistic interactions shape the microbial community organization and composition.

→ More information & booking (opens in new tab)