Bremen · Germany
Reading the chemistry of life in the ocean.
I'm Osman Can Kandemiroglu — an early-career researcher working at the intersection of marine microbiology, organic geochemistry and glycobiology. I trace how microbes shape, and are shaped by, their environments through the lipids and sugars they leave behind.
The work
Lipids, sugars and stable isotopes — a molecular window onto microbial life.
My background spans applied geology and hydrogeology (M.Sc., Ruhr-Universität Bochum) and marine geosciences (M.Sc., MARUM, University of Bremen). I work on archaeal membrane lipids (GDGTs), 13C-labelled substrate incubations, MALDI-FT-ICR mass spectrometry imaging of microbial mats, and PHREEQC-based water–rock modelling.
The connecting thread is simple: which organisms are doing what, and how do we read that from molecules? The questions take me from the Black Sea's anoxic deep, to the Helgoland Mud Area, to the hypersaline microbial mats of Mallorca — and, through modelling, to the deep and shallow groundwater systems via PHREEQC-based water–rock interaction modelling.
Selected projects
Field, lab, and model.
Black Sea Paleobiogeochemistry
Archaea, GDGTs and the paleoclimate signal
Reading archaeal membrane lipids from a stratified anoxic basin to reconstruct past ocean surface-water temperature.
Open project
Helgoland Mud Area
13C-acetate incubations in coastal sediments
Tracking which microbes assimilate small carbon substrates in North Sea muds, and what their lipid signatures tell us.
Open project
Mallorca
Microbial mats & MALDI-FT-ICR-MS imaging
Mapping the molecular landscape of layered phototrophic mats — and asking what this teaches us about Mars-analogue habitats.
Open project
M.Sc. — Bochum
Applied geology & hydrogeology
First master's thesis: subsurface fluids, water–rock interaction, and the geochemical foundations of my later marine work.
Open project
M.Sc. — MARUM & MPI Bremen & BIOM
Marine geosciences
Second master's thesis: marine molecular glycobiochemistry and organic geochemistry, bridging laboratory analysis and the broader oceanographic context.
Open project
All projects
A unified view of the research.
See how the field, lab and modelling work fits together — and how each project feeds into the next question.
Browse all
Open to collaborations & PhD opportunities.
Currently in Bremen. Active interests across astrobiology, hydrothermal vents and the origin of life; marine viruses; marine molecular glyco- and biogeochemistry; sediment and organic geochemistry; palaeoclimatology and hydrogeochemistry; aquatic geomicrobiology; and extreme environments — from geothermal fields to the Atacama.