My name is Thuc, and I have just started as a PhD research fellow at the University of Bergen and the DeepSeaQuence project.  I grew up in Vietnam and got my bachelor’s degree in biotechnology there. In 2018, I came to Europe for the first time to study the Erasmus Mundus Master in Marine environment and resources (MER). With my master’s programme, I had the chance to study in several European countries, starting at Southampton (United Kingdom), the Basque Country (Spain), and Liege (Belgium). I completed my master’s thesis in the UK at the Centre for environment, fisheries, and aquaculture science (Cefas), working on developing a high-throughput assay for identification of Vibrio species. My research interests are applied microbiology and biotechnology.

My PhD project aims to investigate the diversity of biosynthetic gene clusters and antimicrobial peptides in Arctic deep-sea hydrothermal vent microbiomes. With -omic technologies, the goal is to investigate those metabolic interactions inside the deep-sea microbial communities, search for novel biological compounds that can be applied in biotechnology, and infer the potential ecological roles of such compounds.