Fabien Burki

Fabien Burki is an Associate Professor at Uppsala University's Department of Organismal Biology, where he leads the Burki Lab focused on systematic biology. His research investigates protist evolution, particularly the origin of photosynthetic organelles through endosymbiosis and transitions to parasitic lifestyles in marine environments.

Research interests include:

• Evolutionary mechanisms in microbial eukaryotes
• Plastid acquisition and genome reduction
• Phylogenomics of understudied protist lineages
• Marine parasite ecology (e.g., shellfish pathogens)
• Development of phylogenomic methods and databases

His publications demonstrate consistent focus on:

• Resolving deep eukaryotic phylogenies
• Characterizing novel protist diversity
• Evolutionary transitions between free-living and parasitic lifestyles
• Adaptations in organelle biology

He leads multiple research initiatives including an ERC Consolidator grant (PlastidOrigin) supporting investigations into plastid evolution through metagenomics and single-cell genomics. Current lab members include PhD students (Anders Alfjorden, Anne Walraven, Nina Pohl, Yash Pardasani) and postdoctoral researchers (Jennah Dharamshi, Xavi Florenza).