21 March 2025 – Christa Schleper was appointed as one of Austria’s delegates to the European Molecular Biology Conference (EMBC), the funding body of EMBO, in 2020. As she approaches five years in the role, we talked with her about her work, the role of EMBO in the life sciences and advice for young students.
What is your personal area of research?
I’m working on Archaea, a specific group of microorganisms, which are as old as bacteria on this earth. They have played important roles in evolution but also have important ecological aspects, and one of my goals is to understand the role of Archaea in ecology better.
Many of the Archaea are adapted to extreme environments such as hot springs, but my most surprising finding was of a lineage which is found in every soil, and also in every other moderate environment that contains oxygen – so-called ammonia oxidizing Archaea. I am trying to find out how they can compete with bacteria in all these common environments including on the human skin.
Do you have a specific objective for your work?
When I discovered the ammonia oxidisers in soils 20 years ago, I started to investigate how these Archaea have diversified so much, first in hot springs but then in soils which are more moderate environments. They are the only group of archaea that compete with aerobic bacteria globally. These archaea are important because when humans use artificial fertilizer in agriculture 70% leaks into the environment as a result of organisms like these ammonia oxidizing Archaea and also some bacteria which take the ammonia from the fertilizer and oxidise it to nitrite and nitrate. Nitrite is water soluble and leaches into the rivers and lakes where it causes eutrophication and it poisons the groundwater.
These microorganisms compete with the plants for the fertilizer, and they also produce the greenhouse gas N2O. After lot of basic work on these archaea my objective has shifted and is now more focused to help change agricultural practices so that we can more efficiently use fertilizers and reduce the impact of nitrogen on the environment. We still do basic research, but we are running more applied projects now.
How might this knowledge be applied?
We are looking for biological nitrification inhibitors in plants. These are substances that plants can excrete through their roots to modify the microbiome in their own soil, to inhibit the bacteria and Archaea that metabolize ammonium. Looking to find such biological nitrification inhibitors or BNIs is a new research field globally with the aim to breed crops in the future that produce these inhibitors by themselves and thus are dependent on far less fertilizer to be applied.
I’m pretty sure we have some candidate substances already. We are currently testing them. A lot of wild plants produce BNIs, but the modified plants humans have created through breeding to be more productive and resistant, wheat for example, have lost the BNI capacity because the question of nitrogen efficiency was not considered back in those times.
What sparked your interest in this field?
I’m really a fundamental researcher, and I also love to go to the extreme environments like the hot springs. This is how I got into the field – through the fascination of these places and investigating how the Archaea can grow in these extreme conditions. Also, I love to travel to these unusual places: vulcanig areas in Kamchatka, Iceland, the Azores, Yellowstone, and southern Italy.
How important was your EMBO Young Investigator award?
This was really a game-changer for me. I had just established my own lab, and I was bringing in a technology from the US. so-called metagenomics. I analyzed DNA directly from the environment which is how I later discovered the Archaea in the soil and also more recently another lineage, the Asgard Archaea from the deep ocean in Norway. It was not so easy back then as I was running a group, and I just had a baby. When I joined the Young Investigator Network it increased my visibility and strengthened me a lot. I had a mentor who was very helpful, and the award gave me this particular kick to be more self-confident as a group leader.
As an EMBC delegate, how important is EMBO for Austria?
EMBO is well known here and very important. Many of the renowned scientists in Austria are EMBO Members or former EMBO fellows, and it is a very nice network. I like it that also the smaller countries like Austria have a strong voice on the EMBO Council. I’m very impressed with the whole organization and have a lot of admiration for how EMBO was founded based on a vision 60 years ago and how successful it is nowadays. Whenever I think about novel topics, I look at how EMBO is thinking about them, for example gender equality, selection procedures or sustainability in science. EMBO clearly has a leadership role on all levels.
What advice would you give to a student in Austria considering a career in the life sciences?
Everybody is different and finds his or her own path. It was very important for me to go to different countries to see how science is done in different cultures. You get a completely different view. The other point is to choose wisely which laboratories you go to. You want to find an environment where you can develop freely enough to keep your passion for science. You can only do this if you feel comfortable and remember, you are free to choose your ’scientific family’.
How do you see the life sciences in Austria developing?
I think Austria is already a great place for life sciences and biotechnology. Vienna is really amazing in this sense. Our institute has moved to the Vienna BioCenter campus a few years ago and this is a sparkling place for the life sciences in all senses. There are many different institutes, and there is a lot happening. It is a very vibrant atmosphere.
