About Us
How life “finds a way……”
…in the most extreme environments known to humans
Who We Are
The Two Frontiers Project (2FP) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research organization advancing human and environmental health through expedition-driven exploration of microbial diversity across Earth’s most extreme frontiers—our oceans and outer space. We build biotechnological infrastructure to leverage the diversity of life in extreme environments to address major societal challenges, including changing environmental conditions, coral reef bleaching, and sustainable agriculture. Learn more about our Core Values, and why we do what we do, by clicking below.
Core Values
We currently have four primary research initiatives
Our Initiatives
Carbon
With expeditions spanning three continents, from marine volcanic seeps to carbon dioxide springs in the Rocky Mountains, we are discovering organisms that take carbon-based compounds — like carbon dioxide and methane — and convert them into useful products.
Coral
As we currently undergo another worldwide mass bleaching event, we need more tools to protect our reefs. In our Coral Initiative, we do so by sequencing, culturing, and deploying microbial communities to enhance coral restoration methods and reef resilience to disease and heat-stress.
Crops
Global agriculture is continually challenged by drought and pests. We look for crop treatments — microbial and otherwise — that increase crop tolerance in stressful conditions, on Earth and in space.
Exposome
The exposome is the set of all environmental factors — from microbes to forever chemicals — that humans are exposed to on a day-to-day basis. In this initiative, we're building statistical tools for identifying key aspects of the exposome (microbial and otherwise) that influence individual well-being; in parallel, we're hunting for microbial approaches for modulating the exposome to improve health outcomes, like degrading PFAS and improving gut function.
Programs
How We Work
Citizen Science
Every human should have the chance to contribute to the fight against climate change. We regularly run citizen science programs, working with individuals around the world to study and collect interesting microbial samples, from slime in their hot water heaters to algae from their fish tanks.
Get InvolvedThe 2FP Living Library
Each of our core research initiatives involves characterizing the microbial life in diverse ecosystems using standardized, low-cost approaches. We store every sample we take in the 2FP Living Library, which contains both living organisms and paired DNA sequencing data. We are dedicated to Open Science, enabling this resource to be available to the entire research community.
Our tech stackEducational Programs
We are dedicated to building global research capacity. The 2FP has low-cost, modular educational programs designed for anyone from the general public, undergraduate and high school students, other scientists, and even government officials. Using our standardized sampling kits, we can train anyone — from high school students to government officials — to use our methods.
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