Hunting Deep-Sea Symbioses with the Bald Biologist on the Alvin Sub

Facetime with Scientists · Sep 30, 2026 · 40m

For Min Khant Han, a PhD student at the University of Georgia studying symbiosis, none of us are individuals. We are all living amalgamations of various organisms working together. Take our essential gut microbes, for example! But Min is particularly interested in symbioses—close, long-term biological interactions between two different species—that enable life in the most extreme environments, including the deep sea. He’s currently studying examples of symbiosis between methane-oxidizing bacteria and eukaryotic organisms like mussels and nematodes that thrive near methane seeps in the deep…