Fluorinated compounds, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are widespread, contaminating the environment and accumulating in living organisms. My group is investigating the fate and transport of fluorinated compounds in microbial systems, as both free-living and host-associated microbes are capable of bioaccumulating and biotransforming some fluorinated compounds. However, identifying the key enzymes and pathways directly from complex microbiome data remains a challenge. This talk will focus on our group’s research on microbial enzymes that transform and bind to fluorinated compounds. We seek to decode biological recognition mechanisms for C-F bonds, providing a foundation for the design of bio-based sensors and enzymes.

Serina L. Robinson is a Group Leader in the Department of Environmental Microbiology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) and Assistant Professor at ETH Zürich through an ERC Starting Grant which started in April 2026. She earned her PhD in Microbiology and MSc in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology from the University of Minnesota under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Larry Wackett. Previously, she was a U.S.– Norway Fulbright fellow and later an ETH Zürich postdoctoral fellow in the Institute of Microbiology.