Pearson Group

Our ability to understand past, present and future environments depends on our ability to understand the biochemical complexity found in nature and its effects on the carbon cycle. Whether we are studying microbial pathways of carbon fixation, lipid distributions in marine sediments, or the oxygen requirements of individual enzymes, our goal is to understand how and why organisms leave particular chemical signals in the geologic record.

The Pearson lab has pioneered the use of natural radiocarbon (14C) measurements of individual biomolecules to understand the biogeochemical processes mediated by uncultured communities of prokaryotes. More recently, members of the Pearson group also have focused their attention on the emerging field of “lipidomics”, or the complementary use of metagenomic and genetic approaches to deciphering the origins of biomarker lipids of importance to geology.