Director's Message

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

The mornings are cooler now in Woods Hole and the streets are quieter, signaling that yet another MBL summer has come and gone.

It was a landmark summer that included a celebratory ribbon-cutting ceremony for the newly renovated Loeb Laboratory, the kickoff of our historic $125 million Catalyst Campaign, the establishment of the MBL’s new Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering, and another great Friday Evening Lecture series.

Every time I attend an MBL event, I am reminded of what a great group of people makes up the MBL community. You are our scientists and support staff. You are our donors. You are our neighbors. You are the essence of the MBL. And I am grateful to have so many opportunities to connect with all of you in person. Thank you for all you do to make the MBL the special, productive place for science that it is.

Thanks to all of you, the MBL’s impact on science continues to grow.

One example of this impact is the establishment of the new Bell Center, funded with leadership gifts from Millicent Bell and Jack and Valerie Rowe. The new center, combined with our recent receipt of a $3.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to establish a national resource for Xenopus frogs that are important to the study of regeneration, will help position the MBL at the forefront of regenerative biology and medicine.

In the environmental research arena, Linda Deegan, a senior scientist at the MBL’s Ecosystems Center, was selected to join a group of scientists and engineers to address the restoration of the Mississippi River delta in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Linda and her colleagues will advise federal, state, and regional advocacy groups, as well as the Obama administration, on emerging coastal issues, such as the impact of the spill and the development of a White House Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration plan.

This issue of LabNotes provides stories on these recent MBL accomplishments along with other news we hope you will find inspiring. In fact, our hope is that you will feel so inspired that you will consider making a gift to the Catalyst Campaign. We simply need more resources to continue to break new ground in biological discovery and education. To learn more about how you can contribute, visit the Catalyst Campaign website at www.mbl.edu/catalystcampaign.

It is without a doubt an invigorating time at the MBL. As I write this, we are preparing to host TEDxWoodsHole, an exciting event that brings together big thinkers in science and the arts. I hope you can join us on October 16 in Lillie Auditorium for TedXWoodsHole and I am delighted that the MBL is spearheading this event.

Because bringing together big thinkers is something we are told we do well.

With all best wishes,

Gary Borisy
MBL Director and CEO