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News Briefs
 MBL Welcomes New Director of External Affairs
Carol A. Pooser has joined the MBL as Director of External Affairs. She is responsible for overseeing the Laboratory’s development, communications, and Associates activities.
Pooser comes to Woods Hole from the University of Florida College of Medicine where she had been Senior Director of Development since 1998. A seasoned fundraiser, Pooser supervised all alumni and development activities and was responsible for major gift fundraising for the College of Medicine and the Whitney Biomedical Research Laboratory. Prior to this position, Pooser was Director of Development at The Florida Museum of Natural History where she led major gift fundraising and annual fund and membership activities, as well as supervised marketing and public relations programs. She is a veteran of three successful capital campaigns.
In addition to her experience in higher education, Pooser has also held administrative leadership posts at non-profits such as The Volunteer Center of Alachua County, The Boggy Creek Gang Camp and A Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, and the University of Florida Foundation.
“The MBL is pleased to have Carol on board," said MBL Director and CEO William Speck. “Her extensive fundraising and management experience will be immensely beneficial to the Laboratory as we begin the implementation of our strategic plan and the early phases of our next Capital Campaign.”
Honors and Awards
The MBL congratulates Roderick MacKinnon, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at The Rockefeller University, on receiving the 2003 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. The Swedish Academy honored him for his “structural and mechanistic studies of ion channels.” MacKinnon was a member of the faculty in the 1987 and 1988 Neurobiology courses at the MBL, bringing the total number of Nobel Laureates who have taught, taken courses, or done research
at the MBL to 49.
David Keefe, adjunct scientist and director of the Laboratory of Reproductive Medicine, Brown University, based at the MBL, received an award from the Society for Assisted Reproduction for the best paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in San Antonio, Texas, in October. The award recognizes the best paper on in vitro fertilization. The paper, titled “Short telomeres in spare eggs predict poor outcomes after in vitro fertilization; toward a telomere theory of reproductive aging,” was co-authored by Lin Liu and Jim Trimarchi of MBL, Women and Infants Hospital and Brown; Sherry Weitzen of Women and Infants and Brown; and Maria Blasco and Sonia Franco of Madrid, Spain.
The Association of Neuroscience Departments and Programs executive committee has awarded James G. Townsel, Associate VP for Sponsored Research at Meharry Medical College, an ANDP 2003 Education Award. Dr. Townsel shares this award with Joe Martinez with whom he co-directs the Summer Program in Neuroscience, Ethics, & Survival course at the MBL.
The American Association of Anatomists has awarded the 2003 Henry Gray Award to George D. Pappas of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Pappas is a member of the MBL Corporation and longtime summer investigator. The award recognizes Dr. Pappas for his many important contributions to the field of cell biology and to the many professional organizations in which he has been a member.
MBL Trustees Continue to Match Gifts to Annual and Alumni Funds
With over $200,000 to go to meet the goal of $600,000 for 2003, Trustees are urging MBL friends, scientists and alumni to make their gifts by December 31st. With the Trustees Challenge still in effect, many gifts could have double the value for the MBL. Trustees are matching, on a one-to-one basis, gifts from new donors, donors who missed last year, or those who increase their 2002 gift by 20% or more.
Since the actual cost of conducting research and educating students at the MBL is much higher than the tuition charged or the overhead from grants, Annual and Alumni Fund gifts of all sizes play a critical role making up the difference each year. Financial aid, stipends, supplies, and support services are some of the essentials that these funds help provide. Gifts may be made through cash, Visa, Mastercard, Discover or gifts of stock. See www.mbl.edu for online giving or contact Kate Shaw, 7 MBL Street, Woods Hole, MA 02543; (508) 289-7416; kshaw@mbl.edu.
Corporation Elects New Members to Science Council
In August, the MBL Corporation elected six new members to serve on the Science Council. Gaius (Gus) Shaver, a Senior Scientist at the MBL, will represent The Ecosystems Center. Kerry Bloom, University of North Carolina, and Donald Faber, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, will represent Education. Norman Wainwright, a Senior Scientist at the MBL, will represent Year-Round Research. And Susan R. Barry, Mount Holyoke College, and Timothy J. Mitchison, Harvard Medical School, will serve as Members-at-Large. Each new member will serve a three-year term. The Science Council also recently elected Paul De Weer of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine to serve a one-year term as Chair.
Promotions
The MBL Board of Trustees recently approved the promotions of two scientists at The Ecosystems Center. Congratulations to Linda Deegan and Anne Giblin, who were both promoted to Senior Scientist.
 Linda Deegan received her B.S. from Northeastern University, her M.S. from the University of New Hampshire, and her Ph.D. from Louisiana State University. She joined the staff of The Ecosystems Center as an Assistant Scientist in 1989. Deegan aims to understand the relationship between ecosystem dynamics and animal populations. She is especially interested in the role fish play in aquatic ecosystems. She has examined problems ranging from the importance of fish in exporting nutrients and carbon from estuaries, to the effect of habitat degradation on fish community structure in coastal embayments, to the response of upper trophic levels to increased nutrients in arctic streams. Deegan uses a combination of approaches to address these questions ranging from surveys of fish abundance and species composition to traditional gut content analyses as well as state-of-the-art techniques such as measuring of the natural abundance and flows of 15N tracers in food webs. Through collaboration with other scientists at The Ecosystems Center, she assesses how animals influence processes like nutrient regeneration. One of her current interests is learning more about the ways that animals, through feeding, constructing burrows, or migration can regulate or modify biogeochemical cycles.
 Anne Giblin received her B.S. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and her Ph.D. from Boston University Marine Program. She joined the staff of The Ecosystems Center as an Assistant Scientist in 1983. Her primary research interest is understanding the cycling of elements in the environment, especially the biogeochemistry of iron, sulfur, nitrogen, and phosphorus. Much of her work has been focused in soils and sediments where she has examined element cycling under different conditions of oxidation and reduction. She has studied the effects of increased sulfate deposition from acid rain on the sulfur cycle of lakes, the mobility of trace metals in salt marsh sediments, the controls on the availability of phosphorus in tundra soils, and the controls on denitrification in marine sediments. Because the cycling of N, P, Fe and S is strongly affected by the input of carbon, she is also interested in sediment and soil respiration.
Awards Given for Top Presentations at the 2003 General Scientific Meetings
The MBL’s General Scientific Meetings have, for decades, been providing an informal forum for the presentation of research carried out at the MBL, thereby fostering scientific exchange within the MBL community. This year’s Meetings were held August 11 to 13 in the Lillie Auditorium and were co-chaired by Karen Crawford of St. Mary’s College, Robert Gould of New York State Institute for Basic Research, Robert Paul Malchow of the University of Illinois, and Joe Vallino of the Marine Biological Laboratory.
To encourage greater participation in the Meetings, the MBL’s Science Council recently approved a measure to institute the MBL Award for the best paper presented at the meetings in each of four categories: (1) paper presented by an undergraduate student, (2) paper presented by a graduate student, (3) paper presented by a postdoctoral fellow or junior faculty member, and (4) paper presented by a senior investigator. The winner in each category is acknowledged in the October issue of The Biological Bulletin and receives a commemorative medal and $300. After peer-review of all papers and talks, the following awards were made:
Undergraduate Student:
Winner: “Neurochemical modulation of behavioral response to chemical stimuli in Homarus americanus,” Anna Savage and Jelle Atema
Honorable Mentions:
“Cytoskeletal events preceding polar body formation in activated Spisula eggs,” Rafal Pielak, Valeriya Gaysinskaya, and William Cohen
“Radiochemical estimates of submarine groundwater discharge to Waquoit Bay, Massachusetts,” Daniel Abraham, Matthew Charette, Matthew Allen, Adam Rago, and Kevin Kroeger
Graduate Student:
Winner: “A liposome-permeating activity from the surface of the carapace of the American horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus,” John Harrington and Peter Armstrong
Honorable Mentions:
“Intracellular release of caged calcium in skate horizontal cells using fine optical fibers,” Anthony Molina, Katherine Hammar, Richard Sanger, Peter Smith, and Robert Malchow
“Description of Vibrio alginolyticus infection in cultured Sepia officianalis, Sepia apama, and Sepia pharanis,” Cheryl Sangster and Roxanna Smolowitz
Junior Investigator:
Winner: “Long duration three-dimensional imaging of calcium waves in zebrafish using multiphoton fluorescence microscopy,” Edwin Gilland, Robert Baker, and Winfried Denk
Honorable Mention: “An experimental approach to the study of gap-junction-mediated cell death,” Karen Cusato, Jane Zakevicius, and Harris Ripps
Senior Investigator:
Winner: “Lithium chloride inhibits development along the animal vegetal axis and anterior midline of the squid embryo,” Karen Crawford
Honorable Mention: “Axotomy inhibits the slow axonal transport of tubulin in the squid giant axon,” Paul Gallant
 In Memoriam
With sadness the MBL announces the passing of Arthur Colwin, a long-time member of the Corporation, summer investigator, and Trustee Emeritus, who passed away at his home in Key Biscayne on November 1st. He was 92.
Arthur Colwin and his wife Laura have had a long association with the Marine Biological Laboratory. Both first came to the MBL in the 1930s to conduct independent research. Laura was a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania when she first arrived in Woods Hole. Arthur was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University when he spent his first summer at the MBL a few years later. Laura and Arthur met here, and later married.
During World War II, Arthur served with the U.S. Air Force from 1943 to 1946, and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal. Except during the war and a few sabbatical years, the Colwins have returned to the MBL nearly every summer thereafter, conducting ground-breaking research in embryology and fertilization. They became members of the Corporation, served terms on the Board of Trustees, and later became Trustees Emeriti. In the 1950s, the Colwins used the nascent technology of electron microscopy to describe morphologically what happens when a sperm first encounters an egg during fertilization.
When not in Woods Hole, they continued their research and taught generations of undergraduates at Queens College of the City University of New York.
In 2002 the Colwins made an extraordinary gift to the Marine Biological Laboratory: $2.3 million to establish the Laura and Arthur Colwin Endowed Summer Research Fellowship Fund.
Education Update
The MBL is fortunate to attract the finest biologists in the world to direct and teach our courses. Thanks to the commitment and generosity of these scientists, the MBL is able to offer the best courses of their kind in the life sciences. This year we say thank you and farewell to a number of course directors who completed their terms during the summer of 2003. And we welcome their successors.
Caroline Harwood (University of Iowa) and Alfred Spormann (Stanford University) are passing the leadership of the Microbial Diversity Course to William Metcalf (University of Illinois) and Thomas Schmidt (Michigan State University). Donald Faber (Albert Einstein College of Medicine) and Jeff Lichtman (Washington University School of Medicine) are turning the Neurobiology Course over to Edwin McCleskey (Oregon Health Sciences University). David Garbers (University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center) and Randall Reed (Johns Hopkins University) are being succeeded in the Physiology Course by Timothy Mitchison (Harvard Medical School) and Ronald Vale (University of California, San Francisco). And Lenny Guarente (MIT) and Douglas Wallace (University of California, Irvine) are turning the reins of the Biology of Aging Course over to Steven Austad (University of Idaho) and Gary Ruvkun (Massachusetts General Hospital).
MBL Web Site is a 2003 MIMC Awards Finalist
www.mbl.edu nominated in Educational Institution category
The Marine Biological Laboratory’s web site (www.mbl.edu) has been selected as a finalist for the 8th Annual MIMC (Massachusetts Interactive Media Council) Awards in the Educational Institution category. More than 40 sites were nominated for the category. Five of these were selected as finalists.
The MBL web site was developed jointly by the MBL, RDVO, and Avari Studios. The site launched in January of 2003 with a design that represents both the tradition and history of the 115-year-old research and educational institution and its innovative and exciting view of the future.
Held annually by the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council, the MIMC Awards recognize excellence in the creation of interactive technologies designed, produced or developed in New England. The MIMC Awards has been cited as one of the most prestigious awards competitions for New England’s interactive industry and the largest technology awards showcase in the country.
“This year’s MIMC Award submissions attracted some of the most impressive interactive projects and technology applications in the industry today,” said Leslie Cushing, Executive Director of MIMC. “We are delighted to showcase the innovative work that is being produced in the region.”
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