“Talam was founded in my hometown (Carlow), but I didn’t appreciate the great diversity of microbes in soils until I started working here. We are all focused on a common goal of using what we learn to help improve plants, soil and human health. It’s a difficult problem, but we have a keen and dedicated team.”
Daniel is our lead bioinformatician, which means he’s using computers to understand how microorganisms do what they do. His immediate work at Talam focuses on how specific microbes in the soil reduce the uptake of heavy metals into crop plants like rice and wheat. He enjoys the diversity of work at Talam because it also touches other scientific disciplines including microbiology, plant science and soil science. But what he loves most is the discovery — exploring the genomes of the microorganisms Talam has found so he can help figure out what they do, how they work and what makes them unique. That way we can put them to work using nature to solve some big challenges.