Using simplest of creatures from the sea, scientists at MBL unravel life's mysteries

Most of the work at the MBL falls under two large umbrellas - biomedicine and environmental science. The formal alliance between Brown and the MBL - announced this past summer - pushes the potential for interdisciplinary collaborative work even further.

by Cynthia Ferguson

Woods Hole, the small Cape Cod village that is home to the Marine Biological Laboratory, appears at first glance to be a typical seaside community - somewhat sleepy in the winter and teeming with sunburned vacationers in the summer. But overheard conversations in the local sandwich shop or on the walk along the ocean suggest something unique about this town. Nearly everyone in it is talking science.

Some have argued that Woods Hole is to scientists what Paris is to artists. In addition to the MBL, which attracts several thousand scientists a year, there's the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute across the street and half a dozen other highly regarded research centers within a few miles.

Founded in 1888, the MBL is the oldest private marine laboratory in the western hemisphere. Primarily a summer laboratory in its early years, the MBL today still offers its renowned summer program but also serves a cadre of scientists year-round.

The staff and scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory count Nobel laureates the way some institutions track football victories. At last count, 49 Nobel Prize winners have walked the halls of the MBL as students, researchers or teachers. In several cases, the work that made them famous took place at the MBL.

Many outside the world of science assume marine biology is the focus of the work at the MBL, but that, in fact, represents a small part of the research. Scientists use marine animals and plants as models for their experiments and investigations, but what these researchers are hoping to understand generally goes well beyond the health of a surf clam or sea urchin.

"I conduct most of my research in the giant axon of squid," explains Joe DeGiorgis, who earned his Ph.D. at Brown last year and who now, as a scientist with the National Institutes of Health, spends half his time at MBL. "But it's not about squid. I'm not doing marine biology; I'm doing bio-med."

Most of the work at the MBL falls under two large umbrellas - biomedicine and environmental science. Within these categories, however, work can range from the study of biological systems on Mars to searches for cancer cures. Intense interdisciplinary collaboration is the norm.

The formal alliance between Brown and the MBL - announced this past summer - pushes the potential for interdisciplinary collaborative work even further. Mark Bertness, professor of biology and an architect of the graduate program established by the alliance, calls the match a perfect fit because the strengths of the two institutions are so complementary.

David Keefe, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Brown, would certainly agree. Keefe, whose laboratory at the MBL investigates female infertility, relies heavily on the optics developed by Rudolf Oldenbourg, a physicist at the MBL. Oldenbourg's Pol-Scope uses polarized light to image and manipulate living cells non-invasively.

Using the Pol-Scope, Keefe can look inside a human egg without damaging it. "It's the first time we can image the most important structure inside the egg - the spindle," Keefe notes. Being able to look at the spindle, which holds the chromosomes, will allow fertility doctors to select the best eggs for in-vitro fertilization, resulting, Keefe believes, in more successful pregnancies.

Oldenbourg's sophisticated optics also attracted Brown physics professor James Valles Jr. to the MBL. Valles, who is spending the semester in Oldenbourg's lab, is studying intense magnetic fields and their effect on biological systems. More specifically, he is exploring the use of magnetic fields in manipulating systems non-intrusively.

"It turns out," Valles says, "that this kind of microscopy identifies parts of cells potentially manipulative with magnetic fields."

Like other scientists, Valles was lured to the MBL in part by its rich supply of marine animals. The MBL's Marine Resources Center provides scientists around the world with more than 100 different marine organisms. Because of its location on the Cape, the MRC, which operates its own collecting boat, has access to both warm-water and cold-water animals and plants. The Gulf Stream runs along the outer coast, and the cooler Labrador Current travels along the Cape's inner coast. A sea urchin caught in one spot will be markedly different from one captured just miles away.

Marine species provide useful models for biologists because often they are endowed with large cells and elegantly simple mechanisms for carrying out the basic cellular processes of life. These relatively simple creatures serve as living windows through which biologists can view basic processes common to all forms of life.

"Over the years, research on marine organisms at the MBL has laid the foundation for some of our most important medical advances," says Roger Hanlon, director of the Marine Resources Center. "Sea urchins have taught us about fertility. Sea slugs have shed light on learning and memory. And sponges have revealed secrets about immunity." The squid, endowed with a stunningly large nerve cell, or axon, has contributed so much to the study of nerve structure and function that one biologist has suggested the animal should receive a Nobel Prize.

But the biological research - most of which takes place year-round in the Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution, and in the Whitman Center during the summer - is just one part of the equation at the MBL. The Ecosystems Center, which is the largest research unit at the MBL, is in the forefront of ecological research and enjoys an international reputation.

"It's world-class," says John Mustard, associate professor of geological sciences at Brown. "Our alliance with the MBL has given our environmental studies program a real boost. MBL does a lot of modeling that complements what's going on at Brown."

While Brown brings expertise in how the earth's surface is changing, the MBL's strength comes in understanding how those changes affect biological systems, according to Mustard. He and scientists in the Ecosystems Center have written a proposal, and are seeking funding, to investigate environmental changes in the Great Basin region of the United States.

"The Ecosystems Center is without question the best in the world," says Bertness. "The [MBL/Brown] alliance brings a group of world-class scientists into our fold. It lifts the glass ceiling and lets us grow to our full potential." In addition, Bertness notes, the center has research sites around the world, which will now be available to Brown.

Mustard and James Head, professor of geological sciences, are also involved in a project with Mitchell Sogin, director of the Bay Paul Center. The five-year investigation, which NASA just funded through its astrobiology program, will examine exploration strategies for biological environments on Mars. The MBL scientists are pursuing the investigation from a genomics perspective, looking at genes to study life and evolution, while Brown scientists translate those findings into exploration strategies. Graduate students will play a key role in the research at both institutions.

Although considerable work takes place at the MBL throughout winter, it is in June when the campus really comes to life. It is then that nearly 300 summer investigators from around the world begin to arrive - often with cartons of equipment and supplies in tow, and frequently with families and graduate assistants - to set up quarters for the season. With housing at such a premium in the high season, the MBL provides dormitories, apartment units and cottages for most of its visiting scientists.

The summer also brings some 900 lecturers and students who come to give and take the celebrated courses offered at the MBL. "To call them courses is not really doing them justice," says Bertness. "The best faculty from the best universities in the world come to participate in them." It is not unusual to have a Nobel laureate as a guest lecturer in these rigorous summer courses, and 13 alumni have gone on to win the coveted award themselves.

The close professional and family ties formed at the laboratory over the years make Woods Hole and the MBL a special part of many lives. Children of summer investigators often return years later to visit the Laboratory, nostalgically recalling the summers of their youth. "Generations of families develop a real connection to the MBL," notes Gina Hebert, MBL's assistant director of communications.

The MBL, says one former student, "is a special place where people with similar interests roam together to feed and grow off of other people's ideas and ultimately create something greater than anyone could ever do alone."