Antje Boetius (German marine biologist) Add a review

Antje Boetius (born 5 March 1967) is a German marine biologist. She is a professor of geomicrobiology at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, University of Bremen. Boetius received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in March 2009 for her study of sea bed microorganisms that affect the global climate. She has been the director of Germany's polar research hub, the Alfred Wegener Institute, since 2017. In May 2025 she will become president and CEO of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

Boetius was the first person to describe anaerobic oxidation of methane, and believes the Earth's earliest life forms may have subsisted on methane in the absence of molecular oxygen (instead reducing oxygen-containing compounds such as nitrate or sulfate). She has also suggested such life forms may be able to reduce the rate of climate change in future. She is one of the laureates of the 2018 Environment Prize (German Environment Foundation) Boetius also won the Erna Hamburger Prize in 2019.