Maxim Rubin-Blum is a Senior Lecturer at the Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences, University of Haifa (Israel). His lab is based at the Israel Oceanographic & Limnological Research Institute (IOLR), next to the Tel Shikmona beach in the city of Haifa.  Maxim completed his undergraduate studies at Bar Ilan University and his Ph.D. at CSMS, followed by postdoctoral studies at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology.  His main research interest lies in understanding how organisms thrive in extreme or disturbed aquatic habitats, especially deep-sea hydrocarbon seeps, where unique biota limit the emissions of greenhouse gas methane from the sea to the atmosphere. The MRB lab investigates the biology and geochemistry of these ecosystems, using deep-sea robotics, molecular methods and bioinformatics. Maxim’s team strives to understand how different organisms, in particular microbes, such as bacteria, archaea, protists, and viruses, function and interact to make life in these extreme habitats possible. One key focus is the fascinating obligate symbioses between marine animals and chemosynthetic bacteria, capable of providing nutrition to their hosts by fixing carbon using the energy of chemicals instead of sunlight. By studying the unusual organisms in extreme habitats, Maxim looks for novel and efficient mechanisms of carbon fixation and methane removal.  Maxim is married and has a kid. He is a professional scuba diver, who enjoys cooking and inventing pirate stories with his daughter.