Blair Paul

Assistant Scientist

Blair Paul
Contact Information
Education
Ph.D. Marine Science, University of California Santa Barbara, 2013
B.S. Marine Science, Coastal Carolina University, 2008
MBL Affiliation
Bay Paul Center
Research Area
Evolution
Genomics
Marine Biology
Microbiomes

The Paul Lab studies the influence of genetic variation on physical and chemical interactions among microorganisms, with additional interest in microbe-virus dynamics. Current projects examine variation in genomes and proteins of bacteria, archaea, and viruses, while considering the ecological importance of diversification in shaping microbial partnerships. To this end, we apply a combination of computational, molecular, and geochemical tools to study microbial communities and viral assemblages from various environments.

News and Research Highlights
Selected Publications

V Kivenson, BG Paul, and DL Valentine. An ecological basis for dual genetic code expansion in marine deltaproteobacteria. bioRxiv doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2021.680620

Roux, S, BG Paul, SC Bagby, MA Allen, G Attwood, R Cavicchioli, L Chistoserdova, S Hallam, ME Hernandez, M Hess, WT Liu, and EA Eloe-Fadrosh. Ecology and molecular targets of hypermutation in the global microbiome. Nature Communications.doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-23402-7

Vallota-Eastman, A, EC Arrington, S Meeken, S Roux, K Dasari, S Rosen, JF Miller, DL Valentine, and BG Paul (2020) Role of diversity-generating retroelements for regulatory pathway tuning in cyanobacteria. BMC Genomics, 21: 1-13. doi:10.1186/s12864-020-07052-5.

Sieber, MK, BG Paul, CJ Castelle, P Hu, SG Tringe, DL Valentine, GL Andersen, and JF Banfield (2019) Unusual metabolism and hypervariation in the genome of a Gracilibacteria (BD1-5) from an oil degrading community. mBio. doi: 10.1128/mBio.02128-19.

Paul, BG, D Burstein, CJ Castelle, S Handa, D Arambula, E Czornyj, BC Thomas, P Ghosh, JF Miller, JF Banfield, and DL Valentine (2017). Retroelement-guided protein diversification abounds in vast lineages of Bacteria and Archaea. Nature Microbiology, 2,17045. Doi:10.1038/nmicrobiol.2017.45

Handa, S, BG Paul, JF Miller, DL Valentine, and P Ghosh (2016) Conservation of the C-type lectin fold for accommodating massive sequence variation in archaeal diversity-generating retroelements. BMC Structural Biology, 16,13. Doi:10.1186/s12900-016-0064-6

Paul, BG, SC Bagby, E Czornyj, D Arambula, S Handa, A Sczyrba, P Ghosh, JF Miller and DL Valentine (2015) Targetted diversity generation by intraterrestrial archaea and archaeal viruses. Nature Communications 6. doi:10.1038/ncomms7585.