My research is focus in the isolation and characterization of a group of diverse microorganism known as Photosynthetic Purple Non-Sulfur Bacteria (PNSB). This physiologically diverse group of bacteria can grow metabolically by aerobic and anaerobic respiration, fermentation and can perform anoxigenic photosynthesis. The PNSB are a very ubiquitous group of bacteria that can be found in sediments, lakes, sea and ponds that receive enough light to allow photosynthetic development. This research seeks to isolate and characterize the Purple Non-sulfur Bacteria present in the water reservoirs of Puerto Rico, to achieve this we will apply microbiological, molecular and biochemical techniques.

Rhodobacter sphaeroides is one of the members of the PNSB that has been extensively studied genetically and physiologically, specially in the structure, function and regulation of the photosynthetic apparatus. Recently, the photosynthetic system has been proposed together with the putative c-type cytochrome maturation pathway as a model for the development of functional mathematical prediction tool in the field of systems biology. The recent inclusion of Rhodobacter sphaeroides as one of the microorganism in the sequencing genomes project known as: Genomes to life allow the use of the sequence  as a tool to design new research mutagenic, also to understand bioenergetics and metabolic pathways of R. sphaeroides and the use in bioremediation.