By Mark Dwortzan On December 3 and 4, Boston University convened a workshop exploring how synthetic biology—the engineering of genetic “circuits” in living cells and organisms to enable them to perform specified tasks—can help address climate change. Participants, who included thought leaders in science, economics, policy and ethics, considered a wide range of complex challenges
By Jane Marks Zoe Cardon, senior scientist at the MBL Ecosystems Center, has been elected as a member-at-large of the board of the Ecological Society of America, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization of scientists. Founded in 1915, the Ecological Society of America (ESA) works to promote, raise public awareness and increase the resources available for ecological
When Jack Levin and Frederik Bang studied blood clotting in the horseshoe crab at the MBL in the 1960s, they had no idea their research would eventually lead to the development and commercialization of a globally used test for detecting bacterial contamination in medical settings. In recognition of their unexpected and extraordinary contribution to society,
By Jane Marks It is possible to eradicate infectious disease if its chain of transmission can be broken, said Joie Mukherjee at a lecture at MBL this month. But climate change impacts, such as severe storms and flooding, will prompt the spread of vector-borne diseases. And some communities are at higher risk than others, said
By Hannah Knighton Photos by Megan Costello More than 1,500 people flocked to the fifth annual Woods Hole Science Stroll on August 10. Families roamed the streets of Woods Hole to take part in science demos and hands-on activities hosted by the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, NOAA Fisheries (National Oceanic and
By Hannah Knighton
Jennifer Morgan is a leader at MBL, both as a researcher on spinal cord regeneration and as director of the Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering.
Congratulations to 17 MBL course alumni, former faculty, and Whitman Scientists who were recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences, in recognition of their “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.” They are: Basbaum, Allan I, University of California, San Francisco Alumnus, Computer-BioMed II, 1980 Boyden, Edward S., HHMI/Massachusetts Institute of Technology Alumnus, Neural
Paul Greengard was an alumnus of the MBL Embryology course (1950), an Embryology course assistant (1951), Whitman Center investigator (1968, 1987), and a faculty member in the Neurobiology course (1985). From Rockefeller University News Neurobiologist Paul Greengard, a Nobel laureate who revolutionized our understanding of how brain cells communicate with each other and contributed to
In recognition of MBL’s influence on his career and the opportunities it can offer to Yale medical students, Jack Levin, M.D., and his wife Francine have made a philanthropic commitment at Yale to establish the Yale-at-MBL Initiative for Student Research. From Medicine@Yale Roughly 170 miles up the highway from New Haven, at the southwest tip
Sydney Brenner, 2002 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, was an instructor in the MBL Physiology course from 1967-1970 and a MBL Whitman Center researcher (1967-1970, 1988). Among his many contributions to biology, Brenner led a team that described the first complete wiring diagram, or “connectome,” of an organism, the nematode C. elegans. Obituary from