You didn't have an epiphany about your professional vocation? Let's go a little deeper into science. What were your early experiences during your bachelor's degree like? Did they put you in a research mindset? Was that something the National University instilled in you, or was it something you wanted to pursue?
When I was about 16 years old, I had a lot of these discussions with a cousin. He was actually one of the first people who showed me how biologists worked, especially in the Colombian context, but also internationally. That was important to me because he was, let's say, one of the examples I wanted to follow. He's also a biologist, and he studied at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. That's when I realized that research was important to me and that I wanted to pursue that career. With that motivation, I studied at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
I did my bachelor's degree in biology there. Honestly, that wasn't a hard decision for me. I know a lot of people struggle to figure out what they really want to do, but I didn't. I pursued that career, and it was my top choice. During my degree, I realized that doing research was something I was really passionate about. When you study biology, there are many different topics you can explore in greater depth, like microbiology, ecology, or genomics.
Research Topic Selection
Could you tell us about your research process? How do you select a topic or a hypothesis? It's similar to how an artist chooses a concept for a series of works. How does it work in your case, with algae or the ocean? The ocean is full of things, but you have to choose specific animals or other species to study, because your life isn't long enough to study them all. So how do you choose? How do you decide, “I'm going to study this instead of that because it improves this or protects that”? Are you aiming to protect or save something, or is that not part of your agenda?
That has evolved a lot during my career. When I started studying biology, I realized that quite a few things in the field were really interesting to me. I joined a laboratory that focused on environmental microbiology research. That was very interesting because I could study how to use microorganisms to, for example, remediate a polluted river or ecosystem. That has a lot of potential, and it's called bioremediation. It was one of the main things that caught my interest during my degree.
Regarding your question about how you choose a research question, topic, or hypothesis, I think first of all you need to figure out what you really like. As I said before, biology is very broad. Once you have a topic, you need the curiosity to learn more about something specific within it. Let's say your topic is the ocean, but within that you have many different subtopics: coral reefs, mangrove ecosystems, blue carbon, and so on. You need to narrow it down.
Then I think it's important to look at the main issue at the moment. What is the main concern for scientists working in that particular area? Where is the knowledge gap? For example, if you're interested in climate change and want to know more about what blue carbon can do to capture atmospheric CO₂ and reduce global warming, you start narrowing those questions down until they're specific and relevant to the field. Nobody wants to answer questions that have already been answered, so finding the knowledge gap is very important.
Coral Microbiomes and Marine Probiotics
That takes me to the next question. Your work on coral microbiomes and marine probiotics is fascinating. How has it evolved from your early projects during your PhD at KAUST? What was it like?
KAUST stands for King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.
Okay. How did it start, how has it evolved, and now, are you taking up the project again, or is it a brand-new project?
I initially joined KAUST for my master's degree in Environmental Science and Engineering, and then I pursued my PhD there in marine biology. I worked on developing the whole field of coral probiotics, or what we refer to as microbiome interventions, to enhance coral health and resilience to climate change. This is a whole new area within ecosystem restoration science in the marine environment.
I started my PhD in 2020, right when the COVID pandemic began, with my supervisor, Raquel Peixoto, who pioneered this work in Brazil. She had the original idea of developing this microbial therapy to enhance coral health. A lot of people may or may not know that corals are very sensitive to climate change, specifically changes in ocean water temperature. Because ocean temperatures are rising worldwide, corals are suffering a lot. We wanted to apply microbiology to develop a new tool that could be applied directly to corals in the ocean and help them survive these heat waves.
Heat waves are extended periods of elevated seawater temperatures that can last from days to weeks. They're happening more and more often because of climate change. As a result, coral reefs worldwide are declining tremendously. Using this microbiome-intervention tool, we carried out pioneering research in the Red Sea, specifically applying probiotics to corals under real-world conditions. We conducted many experiments directly in the ocean, showing that applying these coral probiotics—which are essentially beneficial bacteria isolated from healthy corals—reshapes their associated microorganisms. Corals, like us, have microbes associated with them, just as we have microbes in our guts.
These microbes are an important part of the coral holobiont. The holobiont is the coral itself, which we call the host, plus its associated microorganisms, including bacteria, viruses, and the symbiotic algae that live within the coral, called zooxanthellae. These symbiotic algae are very important because they provide most of the food, or carbon source, that corals need to survive. Without these algae, corals struggle to get food. When the ocean temperature rises beyond a coral's thermal tolerance, it loses its symbiotic relationship with the algae and expels them. That's why you see corals bleaching and turning white.
Bleaching is when a coral looks whitish. It isn't colorful anymore; it becomes pale and then turns whiter. Corals can recover if environmental conditions improve, essentially when the water temperature decreases and falls below the maximum temperature they can withstand.
Overall, this research allowed us to develop the first patented coral probiotic consortium applied directly to corals in the Red Sea. That opened up many research questions and possibilities for new scientific experiments and projects that are still ongoing at KAUST and other universities worldwide. My PhD research was pioneering because it was the first experiment conducted directly on coral reefs to successfully show that coral probiotics can reshape the coral-associated microbiome by increasing beneficial bacteria and decreasing potential pathogens. Overall, this can help boost coral health without having negative impacts on the reef.
Scaling Up Coral Probiotics
What comes next if you want to scale it up, since it worked?
When you have these tools and interventions for coral restoration, you also have to be careful when scaling them up. In this case, we're talking about coral probiotics. Yes, it is possible to scale them up, and many research teams are doing more research on this approach and testing it at larger scales. However, it's important to mention that probiotics that work for Red Sea corals won't necessarily work in the same way for corals in the Caribbean or the Pacific Ocean. You always have to take into account the environmental conditions at the site, the coral species, and the local context where you want to apply them.
With this toolbox of restoration techniques, you first need to understand which ones are most appropriate for your restoration area. For example, restoring a coral reef doesn't necessarily mean that a technique that works in one place will work the same way somewhere else.
So, let's say you did it in the Red Sea. It could be tested in the Caribbean, here in Colombia, and replicated to a certain extent.
Yes, exactly. The interesting thing is that we can use the same scientific frameworks and methods we developed in the Red Sea and test them in other coral reef systems. Of course, we can do that, and that's the idea. That's why many teams around the world are trying to expand probiotic research as a tool to help restore coral reefs.
Again, we all build on knowledge that people have developed over the years and in different ocean basins. We try to improve on it and test new approaches to improving coral health and the broader reef ecosystem. So yes, I think it's very promising. I believe it has a lot of potential.
Scientific Influences and Role Models
This is a less in-depth question: which scientists, researchers, or teams in your field have most influenced the way you see science and the ocean? Is there a professional in your field whom you really admire? If you were a teenager figuring out what you wanted to be when you grew up—you're 33, right?
I'm 33.
Okay. What do you want to be over the next two or three decades, as you reach the next stage of your life? Whom do you admire? Are there teams you look at and think, “I want to do what they did,” but in your field, with corals? Or is that not really a part of your life? In other fields, kids might say, “I want to be a baseball player,” but they end up doing something else. Do you have any idols in your field?
I don't think “idols” would be the right word.
Examples, then.
In my case, I could talk about Jane Goodall, the famous primatologist. I think she's been an important example for us, especially for women, because she was a pioneer in her field. And of course, Sylvia Earle, known as “Her Deepness” because she pioneered a lot of marine biology research, especially in deep-sea ecosystems and ocean exploration.
Those women have always been an inspiration to me, especially because they're women. I think we'll probably talk more about that later.
Yes, women in science.
Exactly. I think you can always draw inspiration from them because they pioneered their fields. They're not afraid to try new things and do disruptive science, which I think is really important. You have to think outside the box while taking into account what people have already done and what is still waiting to be discovered.
Would you please repeat this woman's last name?
Sylvia Earle.
How do you spell her last name?
E-A-R-L-E.
Earle, yes.
Experimental Failures and Successes
And now you've helped me get to the next question. I was very close to asking it. What experimental failure or success do you remember most? Tell me something from the lab. Maybe you thought something was going to work, but it was a total failure—or the opposite. You were out in the field and got nowhere, but then you found what you were looking for. You know, something that was right there.
Well, I think it's no secret that in science, most of the time we face a lot of failures, more often than we succeed on the first try. It actually works quite the opposite way: you have to fail a lot in order to get it right. During my master's degree, and even before that during my bachelor's, I was constantly learning from my mistakes while running experiments. For example, I remember a project I worked on during my master's that was also related to marine biology, but focused mostly on deep-ocean microbiology. It was different from what I did during my PhD. Anyway, I did a lot of experiments for my master's thesis.
I remember that we weren't very successful in the first trials because we had some issues with the lab equipment. I realized that I spent a lot of time troubleshooting. That's the thing: when you're a scientist working in a lab or conducting any kind of experiment, you have to spend a lot of time troubleshooting. That's normal, but it doesn't mean you've failed. I think it's quite the opposite: it's part of the process, and it eventually helps you answer your research question and get things right.
So, thinking about the opposite, did you ever have success on the first try?
I think so. In my case, when we conducted the probiotic trials in the Red Sea, we got a lot of positive results in the first experiment, as I mentioned earlier. I think that was really impressive because, even though it was our first experiment, we got it right. That was quite meaningful.
Have you continued working with the same person from Brazil on the research, or is she no longer involved?
Oh, I mean, my PI at KAUST—she's amazing. We're still in touch.
You're still working together?
We worked together this year to publish the last paper from my PhD. And of course, you have to exchange ideas and work as a team. In science, especially during a PhD, you collaborate a lot with people in your lab and with external collaborators. They're all contributing something to your research. It's a team effort.
Cultural Consumption: Books, Series, and Music
Okay, now, as we always do on our interviews, we have some questions that might take you outside your professional field, marine biology. We usually ask about cultural things: What are you reading? What are you listening to? What are you watching? What have you been doing in that regard?
Well, okay, so, unrelated to science, I really love watching random movies on Netflix, mainly based on true stories, as well as comedies and suspense films. And of course, I like comfort series, like Emily in Paris. I know it's very mainstream, but I love it. I also really like watching Turkish series with my mom. I love their culture and their food, and I love the landscapes, especially since I've been there on holiday. There's one I'm watching right now called The Other Me, or something like that.
Oh, it's about family constellations.
Yes, I watched it. It's about constellations and past family experiences, and how they influence your current decisions and things like that—how you can heal past traumas. I think it's interesting.
I'm also reading the annual report from the GCRMN, the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. It's essentially a global consortium of scientists and coral reef practitioners who work together to produce annual reports on the status of coral reefs worldwide. The report looks at trends in coral reef health, where corals are surviving best, where they're showing more recovery, and how coral reefs are declining. Unfortunately, as scientists, we try to save as much of these ecosystems as possible, but we also need to accept that we can't save every reef. It's important to be aware of that, and that's why I'm trying to stay up to date with the report.
No other reading, just the annual report on coral reefs? That's what you're reading now?
For now, yes. But I'm also always trying to keep an eye on new things coming out and what other colleagues in the field are studying.
Yeah, exactly. Are you going to be teaching or researching?
I'll be starting a new R&D position in the GCC region.
Okay.
It's for environmental consultancy projects where we'll be carrying out a lot of eDNA, or environmental DNA, assessments in the Arabian Gulf and beyond. With these techniques, we can assess the diversity associated with a particular ecosystem without having to sample or capture the organisms themselves. We just need to take a sample of water, sediment, or even air, and then we can detect species from it.
That's going to be one aspect of the work, but I also hope to integrate it with my experience in coral reefs and ocean science. We want to develop these applications further, not only for monitoring, but also for marine protected area management, environmental policy, and decision-making. For example, the data can help inform authorities about protecting areas or ecosystems that are important for providing ecosystem services and economic benefits to society.
Okay. We missed music in the last question. What do you usually listen to? Do you listen to music in the lab or in your free time? What do you like listening to?
I'm very crossover when it comes to music. I really love salsa and Latin music in general, but I also love jazz, R&B, blues, reggae, pop, and of course rock. So, everything—from pop to jazz, rock, metal, whatever. I change what I listen to depending on my mood. I wouldn't say there's one particular genre I listen to, and I'm always trying out new music, too.
Hope and the Future of the Planet
What inspires you or gives you hope when you look at the sea or analyze samples in the lab? Are we going to manage to save the planet, or are we already doomed? I know I first asked you about yourself, but now it's a global question. You have some secrets to tell us because you're kind of a savior—or one of many saviors—and I get the chance to talk to you. Are we going to make it?
Obviously, that's not an easy question to answer. But you have some secrets. You've observed microorganisms that I haven't.
For sure. We're at a point where we're experiencing ecological collapse. That's undeniable; there's enough evidence for it. I think we have to try to do as much as possible to save what we can and protect what we can. But it's also important to be realistic. We can't expect ecosystems to be the same in 50 years as they are today, because they're experiencing irreversible changes.
Essentially, ecosystems and the species associated with them are shifting in terms of ecological processes, community composition, population abundance, and so on. Which species will become more predominant than others? Some may adapt better than others to the rapid disturbances caused by humans. But that's also why we need to start acting now. If we want to protect certain keystone species found only in a particular place—for example, here in Colombia, a certain orchid species or something else—we need to do as much as possible to protect their habitats, such as primary forests. We also need environmental management plans, areas for strict conservation, and areas for ecosystem rehabilitation and restoration.
So I don't think we should frame it as, “We're not going to save anything; everything is going to collapse, and we're all going to die.” No. I think nature always finds a way, and that gives me some hope.
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