Research line: Extremophiles

Born in Barcelona (1947), Graduate in Chemistry (U. Barcelona), PhD in Science (U. Autónoma de Barcelona). Emeritus Professor of Microbiology at the U. Autónoma de Madrid, Senior Scientists at the Centro de Astrobiología. I participated actively in projects studying the physiology of thermophilic microorganisms, the inhibition of protein degradation in the model of liver regeneration, total reconstitution of halophilic and thermophilic ribosomes, the evolution of the interaction sites of protein synthesis inhibitors (antibiotics) , genomics of extreme halophilic microorganisms, molecular ecology of extreme acidic environments, deep subsurface geomicrobiology and the study of extreme environments as terrestrial analogues of astrobiological interest. In the last thirty-five years I devoted an important part of my research to the geomicrobiological characterization of Río Tinto, an extreme acidic environment, its origin and the propkaryotic and eukaryotic diversity in the water column, biofilms and sediments. In the recent years I directed an Advance ERC Project devoted to the characterization of the geomicrobiology of the Iberian Pyrite Belt deep subsurface with the aim to demonstrate that the extreme conditions existing in the Tinto basin are the consequence of an active underground bioreactor. The geomicrobiological characterization of Río Tinto performed by our group allowed to consider this extreme environment as one of the best geochemical and mineralogical terrestrial Mars analogues.

ORCID: 0000-0002-7560-1033

ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ricardo_Amils