Didier Flament

In the late 1970s Carl Woese discovered that living organisms on Earth could be classified into one of three distinct domains, Eukarya, Bacteria and Archaea. The Archaea are a group of micro-organisms often found in extreme environments. Although they resemble bacteria, they show similarities to eukaryotes, regarding the way they process information including DNA replication and repair pathways. Our work is focussed on members of Thermococcales genus, Pyrococcus abyssi and Thermococcus barophilus. They were isolated from deep hydrothermal environments. These species are hyperthermophilic anaerobes that grow at 95°C. We are interested in understanding DNA replication and DNA repair pathways in hyperthermophilic archaea using a combination of biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, biophysics and structural biology technologies.