An electronic newsletter from the Marine Biological Laboratory
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Message from the Director
Dear Friends,
Greetings from Woods Hole! The MBL is enjoying another exciting summer season of great science and discovery. After an ambitious nine-month renovation, the Rowe Laboratory (formerly Whitman) opened its doors on schedule this spring, welcoming to their new labs 110 Principal Investigators and an additional 184 scientists and students from 146 institutions and 16 countries (statistics that are quite comparable to past years).
These Whitman Center investigators are conducting basic research on a wide variety of topics ranging from understanding the biology of learning and memory; to determining the role that zinc plays in vision and disease; to learning more about how mice use ultrasonic sound to communicate; to exploring the mechanisms responsible for cell division and cancer.
Our
six summer courses are also in full swing. Our students work 24/7 while they're with us; every waking minute, it seems, teems with lectures, discussions sessions, or laboratory exercises. To date, 476 students from 264 institutions and 33 countries have participated in our courses this year, and more will join us later in the summer for a series of special topics programs.
Among the many outstanding lectures and mini-symposia organized by our course faculty, I wanted to highlight one in particular offered by our Frontiers in Reproduction course. Course co-director David Albertini brought together scientists and journalists to discuss how industrial chemicals commonly used in products from baby toys to dental sealants can profoundly affect reproduction and early development in several species. Titled
"Our Chemically Modified Environment: What is Happening to Reproductive Homeostasis?" the symposium was held in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Rachel Carson, a renowned environmentalist and writer whose early experience as a student and investigator at the MBL inspired her work and writing.
I'm also pleased to report that the
Encyclopedia of Life project is off to a smashing start. The MBL is playing a key role in this endeavor, providing the informatics expertise required to launch and maintain this ambitious undertaking. The MBL and its partner institutions publicly announced the project in at the National Press Club in Washington in early May, which garnered media coverage in more than 500 publications and broadcast outlets worldwide.
I hope you are enjoying productive summer and hope to see you in Woods Hole soon for the annual meeting of the MBL Corporation and rededication of the Rowe Laboratory building, both on Friday, August 3rd (
see our list of calendar events).
Gary Borisy, Director and CEO
