SciLifeLab Planetary Biology featured in Nature Methods
A new technology feature in Nature Methods explores how a growing community of researchers is connecting the molecular and cellular scales to the health of the planet — and why urgency is driving the science.
“We want to help researchers connect molecules and cells to biodiversity and ecosystem function,” says Jan Ellenberg, Director of SciLifeLab, in a new technology feature in Nature Methods that puts the organization’s Planetary Biology Strategic Area on the international map. The piece profiles researchers across the globe who are bridging molecular and cellular biology with the health of ecosystems, driven by the urgency of climate change and biodiversity decline.
Planetary Biology Strategic Area Scientific Lead, Olga Vinnere Pettersson, who helps researchers find collaborators and access the full breadth of SciLifeLab’s technologies, frames the field’s ambition as “precision medicine for environment” — applying deep knowledge of biological systems to guide real-world intervention in ecosystems.
Group Leader Courtney Stairs, whose research on protists and sponge holobionts exemplifies cross-scale thinking, highlights what SciLifeLab’s infrastructure makes possible: “That’s when biology gets interesting.”
The feature arrives at a pivotal moment. This October, SciLifeLab hosts a major international conference in Uppsala that builds directly on the momentum of the 2025 European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) workshop Integrating cell and planetary scales to address climate resilience, with several of its lead organisers continuing on the Uppsala committee.
The conference brings together a deliberately broad community: from academic researchers and infrastructure directors to biotech founders, climate-tech investors, science policy experts, and public and private funders. Because planetary challenges do not stop at the edge of a discipline, and neither should the people working on them.
Read the full article written by Vivien Marx.
Conference: Integrating Scales in Planetary Biology — From Cells to Biodiversity & Planetary Resilience. 28–30 October 2026, Uppsala University Main Building, Sweden
