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October 2025: Julie is awarded the 2025 Research Excellence Award of the European Mineralogical UnionThe medal is presented to a young mid-career scientist who has made significant contributions to research in mineralogy and whose professional and societal activities contribute to strengthening scientific links in Europe. The medal is presented to a young mid-career scientist who has made significant contributions to research in mineralogy and whose professional and societal activities contribute to strengthening scientific links in Europe.
October 2025: Welcome MohammedWe are welcoming Mohammed Rehmanji, a new postdoctoral research who will be working on the molecular mechanisms of microbial biomineralisation as part of our ERC project BioFacts. Read Mohammed's bio here.
September 2025: New collaboration with CyanoCaptureThrough funding from Innovate UK Engineering Biology SPARK Awards, we will be collaborating with the innovative startup CyanoCapture to investigate the potential of their unique, fast-growing cyanobacteria—engineered for enhanced CO₂ uptake—to create carbon-negative mineral materials. For this, we will use our new high-throughput in-situ mineral characterization platform to rapidly test and optimize carbon mineralization under a range of culture conditions. We plan to run more than 1,500 mineralization experiments over the next six months. This will be a critical first step in de-risking a new potential commercial pathway for carbon dioxide removal and developing a UK-based, mineral circular bioeconomy.
Learn more about the project here 
April 2025: Welcome MathisMathis Lemonnier (Ecole Normale Superieure, Lyon) is viting the Oxford Department of Earth Sciences for a 3-month internship in our lab. He will be applying high-throughput microscopy and Raman spectroscopy to investigate the environmental determinants of calcium-carbonate biomineralization by S. pasteurii.
March 2025: Launch of OxEarth
The University of Oxford is establishing a new multidisciplinary research initiative for sustainable natural resources. The Oxford EARTH programme (Ensuring equitable Access to sustainable Resources for a Thriving Habitat) aims to address the challenges in natural resources underpinning the net zero energy transition, including critical raw materials needed for the generation, storage and transmission of renewable energy, and the social license needed to extract them from the Earth. Supported by £3.4 million in funding from the University of Oxford, this five-year programme will position Oxford as a global leader in this research area through collaborative efforts with a diverse range of external stakeholders. The interdisciplinary research team spans nine departments and faculties - Earth Sciences, Chemistry, Biology, Engineering, Geography, Economics, Law, Materials, and the Saïd Business School - bringing together expertise from across the university to drive a truly holistic approach to resourcing the sustainable energy transition.
As part of OxEARTH, Julie Cosmidis (co-I) will be recruiting a 5 year postdoctoral fellow to investigate new engineering biology strategies for microbial resource recovery, in collaboration with Prof. Harrison Steel (Department of Engineering Science). 
January 2025: Delivery of our automated Raman spectromicroscope
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This instrument will allow us to perform high-throughput characterization of (bio)minerals forming in situ in mineralization experiments and microbial cultures
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April 2024: Start of the ERC project Biofacts
Learn more about the project here
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March 2024: Listen to Julie's interview for Radio-Canada (in French)
Julie is talking about recently published research describing a compilation of more than 4000 brains preserved in the archeological record
