Marine Biological Laboratory

Coordinates: 41°31′34.40″N 70°40′22.40″W / 41.5262222°N 70.6728889°W / 41.5262222; -70.6728889
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Marine Biological Laboratory
applied research
Field of research
Biology
DirectorNipam Patel
Address7 MBL Street
LocationWoods Hole, Massachusetts, United States
41°31′34.40″N 70°40′22.40″W / 41.5262222°N 70.6728889°W / 41.5262222; -70.6728889
02543-1015
NicknameMBL
AffiliationsUniversity of Chicago
Websitewww.mbl.edu

The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is an international center for research and education in biological and environmental science.[1] Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution that was independent for most of its history, but became officially affiliated with the University of Chicago on July 1, 2013.[1][2] It also collaborates with numerous other institutions.

As of 2023, 60 Nobel Prize winners have been affiliated with MBL as students, faculty members or researchers.[1][3] In addition, since 1960, there have been 137 Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators, early career scientists, international researchers, and professors; 306 members of the National Academy of Sciences; and 236 Members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences who have been affiliated with the lab.[1]

History

19th century

The Marine Biological Laboratory grew from the vision of several Bostonians and

fisheries). Baird had set up a United States Fish Commission research station in Woods Hole in 1882, and had ambitions to expand it into a major laboratory. He invited Alpheus Hyatt to move his marine biology laboratory and school which he had founded at the Norwood-Hyatt House in Annisquam, Massachusetts, to Woods Hole. Inspired by Harvard biologist Louis Agassiz's short-lived experimental summer school, the Anderson School of Natural History on Penikese Island, off the coast of Woods Hole, Hyatt accepted the offer. With $10,000 raised by the Woman's Education Association of Boston and the Boston Society of Natural History
, land was purchased, a building was erected, and the MBL was incorporated with Hyatt as the first president of the board of trustees. The Fish Commission supplied crucial support, including marine organisms and running sea water.

Facilities in 1899
The residence
The laboratory, hatchery, aquarium, and museum

University of Chicago professor, Charles Otis Whitman, an embryologist, was retained to also serve as the first director of the MBL.[4] Whitman believed "other things being equal, the investigator is always the best instructor," and emphasized the need to combine research and education at the new laboratory. The MBL's first summer course provided a six-week introduction to invertebrate zoology; facilities for visiting summer investigators were also offered.

The MBL Library was established in 1889, with scientist and future MBL trustee Cornelia Clapp serving as librarian. In 1899, the MBL began publishing The Biological Bulletin, a scientific journal that is still edited at the MBL.

Gertrude Stein, later well known as a novelist and art collector, took part in MBL's Embryology course in the summer of 1897, while her brother Leo took part in the Invertebrates course.[5][6][7]

20th century

Photograph of the Marine Biological Laboratory trustees standing in front of a building
The trustees of the Marine Biological Laboratory in 1934. The lone woman, Cornelia Clapp, stands near the center of the front row.

Writing in 1972, Lewis Thomas both explained and praised the nature of the MBL as a scientific institution. He wrote about it in his recurring New England Journal of Medicine column called "Notes of a Biology-Watcher", in an installment called "The MBL";[8] the essay was later collected into the volume titled The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher.[9]: 66–74  He said of the MBL of that day, "Today, it stands as the uniquely national center for biology in this country; it is the National Biological Laboratory without being officially designated (or yet funded) as such. Its influence on the growth and development of biologic science has been equivalent to that of many of the country's universities combined, for it has had its pick of the world's scientific talent for each summer's research and teaching. […] Someone has counted thirty Nobel Laureates who have worked at the MBL at one time or another. It is amazing that such an institution, exerting so much influence on academic science, has been able to remain so absolutely autonomous. It has, to be sure, linkages of various kinds, arrangements with outside universities for certain graduate programs, and it adheres delicately, somewhat ambiguously, to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution just up the street. But it has never come under the domination of any outside institution or governmental agency, nor has it ever been told what to do by any outside group. […] There is no way of predicting what the future will be like for an institution such as the MBL. One way or another, it will evolve. It may shift soon into a new phase, with a year-round program for teaching and research and a year-round staff, but it will have to accomplish this without jeopardizing the immense power of its summer programs, or all institutional hell will break loose. It will have to find new ways for relating to the universities, if its graduate programs are to expand as they should. It will have to develop new symbiotic relations with the Oceanographic Institute, since both places have so much at stake. And it will have to find more money, much more — the kind of money that only federal governments possess — without losing any of its own initiative. It will be an interesting place to watch, in the years ahead."[9]: 66–74 

21st century

Facilities in 2023
Rowe Laboratory
Loeb Laboratory
C.V. Starr Laboratory
Swope Building (residences)

The MBL became formally affiliated with the University of Chicago on July 1, 2013.[2] In order to further scientific research and education, the affiliation builds on historical ties with the university, as MBL was led by University of Chicago faculty members in its first four decades. The president of the university chairs the MBL trustee's board and with their advice appoints its members.[10] The Laboratory is a non-profit Massachusetts corporation, whose sole member is the university.[11]

In September 2018, Nipam Patel became director of the Marine Biological Laboratory,

Huntington F. Willard.[13]

Research

Staff

The MBL has approximately 250 year-round employees, about half of which are scientists and scientific support staff.[14] They are joined each year by more than 500 visiting scientists, summer staff, and research associates from hundreds of institutions around the world, as well as a large number of faculty and students participating in MBL courses (in 2016, 550 students from 333 institutions and 58 countries).[15]

As of 2022, 60 Nobel Prize winners have been affiliated with MBL as students, faculty members or researchers.[1][3] In addition, since 1960, there have been, 137 Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators, early career scientists, international researchers, and professors; 306 members of the National Academy of Sciences; and 236 Members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences who have been affiliated with the lab.[1]

Facilities

The MBL's resident research centers are the Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering, the Ecosystems Center, and the Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution. Visiting scientists are affiliated with the MBL's Whitman Center. Whitman Center Scientists comprise more than 100 principal investigators from academic institutions around the world. Other resources include The Marine Resources Center, an advanced facility for maintaining, culturing, and providing aquatic and marine organisms essential to biological, biomedical, and ecological research; and The National Xenopus Resource, which breeds and maintains Xenopus (frog) genetic stocks; and provides training in Xenopus husbandry, cell biology, imaging, genetics, transgenesis, and genomics.

The MBL shares a library, the MBLWHOI Library, with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The MBLWHOI Library holds print and electronic collections in the biological, biomedical, ecological, and oceanographic sciences, and houses a growing archival collection, including photograph and videos from the MBL's history. The library also conducts digitization and informatics projects.

Research

Research at the MBL focuses on four themes:

  • fundamental biological research, often using marine organisms as novel model systems, encompassing research in regenerative biology, neuroscience, sensory physiology, and comparative evolution and genomics;
  • the study of microbiomes and microbial diversity and ecology in a variety of ocean and terrestrial habitats;
  • imaging and computation;
  • ecosystems science and climate change, and organismal adaptation to changing environments.

Cell, developmental, and reproductive biology

Cell, developmental, and reproductive biology have been a central part of the MBL's programs since the 1890s. Important discoveries in these fields at the MBL reach back to 1899, when

microtubules
, carried out research at the MBL starting in 1937 and directed the laboratory from 1975-77 (Barlow et al., 1993: 95-115).

The MBL is also a proving ground for new technologies in

spindle fibers
.

The MBL has long been a center for the world's experts in cell division. In the early 1980s,

Ron Vale, Michael Sheetz, Joe DeGiorgis, and others discovered kinesin, a motor protein involved in mitosis and other cellular processes, during summer MBL research. Vale, Sheetz, and James Spudich received the 2012 Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research for their discoveries related to molecular motors. In 1991 Israeli scientist Avram Hershko
began coming to the MBL to study the role that the protein ubiquitin plays in cell division. In 2004, Hershko won a Nobel Prize for his work to establish the basic mechanism of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation.

A large portion of the leading developmental biologists in the United States, both historically and today, have participated in the MBL's Embryology Course as directors, lecturers or students. One draw is the Woods Hole location and the availability of marine organisms, particularly the sea urchin, that are ideal for embryological analysis because they shed nearly transparent eggs which are fertilized and develop externally. In the first decades after the course was founded in 1893, its faculty pioneered research directions that remain central today, including the study of cytoplasmic localization in eggs; embryonic cell lineage (important in modern stem cell research); and evolutionary developmental biology (today called 'evo devo'). Some distinguished embryologists who have directed or co-directed the course are:

Regenerative biology and medicine

In 2010, the MBL established the Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering, where researchers study the ability of marine and other animals to spontaneously regenerate damaged or aging body parts. An understanding of tissue and organ regeneration in lower animals holds promise for translation to treatments for human conditions, including spinal cord injury, diabetes, organ failure, and degenerative neural diseases such as Alzheimer's. A cornerstone of the Bell Center is a national resource for research on the frog, Xenopus, which is a major animal model used in U.S. biomedical research. The National Xenopus Resource at the MBL is funded by the National Institutes of Health (MBL Facts).

Neuroscience, neurobiology, and sensory physiology

The MBL's contributions to

Doryteuthis (formerly Loligo) pealeii, continues today, with studies on axonal transport, the squid giant synapse
, squid genomics, and the molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease.

Other marine organisms draw neuroscientists and neurobiologists to the MBL each summer, where a history of research into sensory physiology and behavior has been established.

LAL test
has resulted in dramatic improvement in the quality of drugs and biological products for intravenous injection.

Ecosystems science

Ecosystems research became a year-round commitment at the MBL in 1962 with the founding of the Systematics-Ecology program, under the direction of Melbourne R. Carriker. In 1975, the MBL's Ecosystems Center was established, with George Woodwell as director. The original research focus was on the global

Anne Giblin. Former directors of the Center who are still active on the scientific staff are Jerry Melillo, who studies the biogeochemistry
of terrestrial ecosystems, and John Hobbie, a microbial ecologist. The Ecosystems Center is founded on a vision of collaborative, interdisciplinary science; shared lab facilities and instrumentation; and a long-term, large-scale, systems-wide view of ecosystem processes.

Comparative genomics, molecular evolution, and microbial ecology

The Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution was founded at the MBL in 1997 and is currently directed by David Mark Welch. By comparing diverse

hydrothermal vents
to highly acidic ecosystems, which may lead to a better understanding of life that could exist on other planets. Activities at the Bay Paul Center are supported by advanced DNA sequencing and other genomics equipment at the center's Keck Ecological and Evolutionary Genetics Facility.

Education program

The MBL offers a range of courses, workshops, conferences, and internships throughout the year.[1][16] Central to its programs are more than 20 Advanced Research Training Courses, graduate-level courses in topics ranging from physiology, embryology, neurobiology, and microbiology to imaging and computation integrated with biological research.[1][16]

In addition, the MBL hosts courses for undergraduate and graduate students from the University of Chicago and other colleges and universities, as well as workshops and conferences—accommodating more than 2,600 participants in 2016.[1][16][17]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i "About the MBL". mbl.edu. Retrieved 2022-04-04.
  2. ^ a b "Affiliation with University of Chicago". Affiliation with University of Chicago. Retrieved 2022-04-04.
  3. ^ a b "Nobel Laureates Affiliated with the MBL". mbl.edu. Retrieved 2019-07-07.
  4. ^ "Charles Otis Whitman (1842-1910) | The Embryo Project Encyclopedia". embryo.asu.edu. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
  5. ^ "Women of Science, Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)". Inside the MBL. Retrieved August 2, 2018.
  6. ^ Embryology Class 1897 (Photograph). Woods Hole, Massachusetts: Marine Biological Laboratory Archives. 1897. 1897 Embryology Class, six women sitting in front row, two rows of men standing behind them, many with hats on, most looking at camera. Gertrude Stein sitting on lookers left.
  7. ^ The Vigilant (photograph). Falmouth, Massachusetts: Historic New England. 1897. GUSN-197262. Retrieved August 2, 2018. A boating party aboard The Vigilant at a dock in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Gertrude Stein is at the extreme right rear.
  8. PMID 5022890
    .
  9. ^
    ISBN 0-553-13972-X
    .
  10. ^ "University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer to serve as Chairman of Marine Biological Laboratory Board of Trustees". Affiliation with University of Chicago. 27 November 2013. Retrieved 20 September 2014.
  11. ^ "About the MBL". Retrieved 2022-04-04.
  12. ^ "Introducing Nipam Patel: Director, Marine Biological Laboratory". www.mbl.edu. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  13. ^ "UChicago Faculty Members to Serve on MBL Interim Leadership Team". www.mbl.edu. Retrieved 16 June 2017.
  14. ^ "About the MBL". www.mbl.edu. Retrieved 2018-04-13.
  15. ^ "MBL – University of Chicago Affiliation FAQ". www.mbl.edu. Retrieved 2018-04-13.
  16. ^ a b c "Education – Marine Biological Laboratory — Biological Discovery in Woods Hole". www.mbl.edu. Retrieved 2019-07-07.
  17. ^ "The College at Marine Biological Laboratory". college.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2019-07-07.

Further reading

External links

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