Norwegian CoEs behind major scientific breakthroughs
This year Norwegian Centres of Excellence (CoEs) have made many scientific breakthroughs. In 2015 CoE scientists have published eight articles in Nature since January, equaling the number of CoE Nature publications during 2014.
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Director General RCN Mr. Arvid Hall茅n comments that the articles in Nature are a clear indication that these centers advance the scientific forefront within their respective fields.
One of the articles Mr. Arvid Hall茅n refers to is the May 2015 Nature paper 鈥淐omplex archaea that bridge the gap between prokaryotes and eukaryotes鈥� co-authored by CGB post-doc Steffen J酶rgensen (picture). During an annual CGB cruise a new microbe found a mile and a half below the Atlantic Ocean recently gave the scientists a major lead on the origins of complex life. Named Lokiarchaeota - Loki for short - the tiny organism is truly an unusual microbe.
Despite the current paradigm that suggests that all complex life (named eukaryotes) evolved from simple unicellular organism (known as prokaryotes), it has remained an enigma that the something as advanced as the modern eukaryotic cell could originate from something as simple as the prokaryotic. However, J酶rgensen and colleagues found that Lokiarchaeota are more similar to complex-celled eukaryotes than any prokaryotic life form ever found before. Scientists are calling it the 鈥渕issing link鈥� between prokaryotes and complex life.
LINKS:
Nature Paper:
Article on Steffen Leth J酶rgensen:
/en/geobio/88355/excellent-results-centre-excellence
Norwegian Research Council: (in Norwegian only).