Microbes are powerful living agents that persist through planetary changes and essentially keep the world alive. I am passionate to characterize microbial communities in different ecosystems and decipher their ecological and evolutionary interactions with other organisms. I am notably interested in how microbes influence adaptive traits in insects.

Currently, in the Extavour lab, I am investigating the role of gut microbes in adaptation of Drosophila on distinct breeding-substrates and the associated reproductive capacity evolution.

My early works were mostly on diversity and biosynthetic capabilities of filamentous microbes known as Actinomycetes. My exciting discoveries on Actinomycetes motivated me to examine the role of microbes in their native habitats and to investigate insect-microbe interactions. Accordingly, my research in the labs of Prof. Boaz Yuval and Prof. Edouard Jurkevitch were primarily about how dynamically adapting/shifting microbiomes complement life stage transitions in insect hosts.