Marine Biological Laboratory

We're thrilled to announce the largest private gift in our 137-year history: a $25 million unrestricted donation from MBL Whitman Scientist Mark Terasaki. His extraordinary generosity will bolster our renowned research and education programs. 🔬 Learn more: bit.ly/452WL1m

Taylor Sakmar, the MBL's senior collector, regularly visits biodiverse estuaries, marshes and ocean sites around Cape Cod to fulfill requests for unique organisms that scientists at the MBL are studying. 🔗 Learn more about his role: go.mbl.edu/take5-sakmar 📸: Camille Ledoux

This tiny squid, captured on a #MegaSPIM light sheet microscope, is helping scientists understand how cephalopods detect changes in their aquatic environment. 🦑 Learn more: bit.ly/48lUArz #MicroscopyMonday @carsten-wolff.bsky.social @mblscience.bsky.social

🔬 Happy #MicroscopyMonday! Take a look at this image of neurons growing in culture expressing a fluorescent voltage-sensitive protein that can be paired with optogenetics. Imaged by Kevin Chen in the 2026 Neurobiology course.

🌊 How do scientists study deep particle flux? Rut Pedrosa Pàmies and JC Weber from the Oceanic Flux Program shared details about how subsurface mooring, exciting discoveries, and more. 🔗 Full videos: go.mbl.edu/gt0y4o 🎥: Tim Musso and OFP 💻: Cathy Ching

🐻 A water bear for #3DThursday! This #tardigrade was imaged with label-free holotomography, with a voxel dimension of 0.25 x 0.25 x 1.09 um. 🔬: HT-X1 system @tomocube.bsky.social 🥼: #OMIBS course participants, Summer 2026 @omibs-mbl.bsky.social 🏛️: MBL @mblscience.bsky.social 🎬: #syGlass, v2.7.1+

New paper out in New Phytologist @newphyt.bsky.social! nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #PlantScience #PlantEcophysiology #Wetlands #Cattails #Roots #RadialOxygenLoss

Congratulations to nine members of the MBL’s community that have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM)! 👏 🔗 See the list of new members here: go.mbl.edu/j4np3h

Excited to be back at @mblscience.bsky.social for the Aquatic Models of Human Disease conference! #AQMHD2026

Another amazing Developmental Biology of the Sea Urchin and Other Marine Invertebrates meeting at its XXIX edition, at @mblscience.bsky.social. The lab was represented by talks from Ina, Olga and Lorenza (@mlrusciano.bsky.social) and we had the pleasure to catch up with many old friends! #DBSUMI

What if you could see light in a whole new way? Michael Shribak (@shribak.bsky.social), a senior scientist at the MBL, developed and patented a polychromatic polarization microscope that allows him to visualize an "invisible" property of light. 🔗 Read more here: go.mbl.edu/light

🧬 Oops, we missed World #CRISPR Day yesterday… we were a little busy gene editing cells in the lab! Want to get hands-on with CRISPR? Our Advanced Research Training Courses offer opportunities to learn cutting-edge techniques. 🔗 go.mbl.edu/ARTC27

🔥New episode just dropped! Have you heard about the MBL summer courses at Woods Hole? In this episode we visit the mythical Microbial Diversity course there and talk with the students & instructors. Check out how they learn to ask new questions and think about approaching them!

🔬 Happy #MicroscopyMonday! Meet Arietellus plumifer, a deep-sea calanoid copepod collected 500 meters below the surface. Imaged by JC Weber, a senior research assistant at the Oceanic Flux Program, using a ZEISS Stemi SV-11 stereomicroscope and Olympus DP73 camera.

👏 We loved welcoming this year’s The Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT (@ksjatmit.bsky.social) fellows to the Marine Biological Laboratory!

Researchers at UCSF published a new study in Cell in collaboration with @mblscience.bsky.social, revealing how squids use extensive RNA editing to expand the functionality of thousands of proteins, diversifying their stability, localization, and activity. qbi.ucsf.edu/qbi-highligh...

Applications for Microbial Diversity are now open! A once-in-a-lifetime experience is an application away! www.mbl.edu/education/ad... @mblscience.bsky.social #MicrobialDiversity

🪝 “Start with the hook.” MBL alumna and science communicator Samantha Jones, PhD (@samjscience.bsky.social), shared tips with Comparative Developmental Biology students on turning a love of science into a career in science communication. 🔗 go.mbl.edu/n3hj0b

🔬 Myth vs. fact? Let’s take a closer look at the impact of giving. Learn how your support helps the Marine Biological Laboratory make groundbreaking discoveries. 🔗 Donate today: mbl.edu/give

📣 APPLICATIONS OPEN! Applications for the MBL's Advanced Research Training Courses are now open. 🔗 Check out details for course offerings here: go.mbl.edu/ARTC27

⏰ EARLY AND ROLLING ADMISSIONS! Apply to early admissions round 2 for Semester in Biological Discovery program by October 15, with the final deadline on December 15. 🔗 More info here: go.mbl.edu/SBD

🎉 Wrapping up another fantastic #IHCIFCourse2026! Thursday night - you can find our crew at Captain Kidd! It’s a tradition and a fun ending to a great course! A big thank you to the Marine Biological Laboratory @mblscience.bsky.social for hosting us and helping make it such a wonderful experience!

The AQMHD 2026 conference program is now available! See you October 17–21 at @mblscience.bsky.social in Woods Hole for exciting research on aquatic models, emerging approaches to human disease, and more! View the full program: aqmhd.org #AQMHD2026 #AquaticModels

A video of Filoreta ramosa, a fascinating protist that can form multinucleate networks, for #MicroscopyMonday. Imaged by Erandi Sachinthanie, Andrew Kennard, Amaranta Kahn, Jason Bear, Annie Rowe, and John Spear (@spearmicrobe.bsky.social) from the 2026 Microbial Diversity course.

Condensates have their roots in the MBL’s Physiology course, and new research about these cellular compartments that act as hubs for facilitating biological reactions continues to reveal novel insights into how cells function. 🔗 Full story here: go.mbl.edu/k72o6g

Congratulations to MBL alumnus Karl Deisseroth, co-recipient of the 2026 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine! We’re proud to celebrate this remarkable achievement. 🔗 More info here: go.mbl.edu/p30rtz

Had such a wonderful time back in my happy place @mblscience.bsky.social attending #cnidofest2026. Great science, great people and great fun. (T-shirt art credit @stoilovamarina.bsky.social)

Happy #MicroscopyMonday! Check out this free-swimming cercaria larva of a local parasitic flatworm Lepocreadium setiferoides, which infects mud snails. Imaged and sampled by Ana Corum and Yuxuan Xu in the Rawlinson Lab.

We’re exploring the possibility of an MBL Alumni Weekend—and we want to know what would make you excited to return! Tell us what you’d love to see, do, learn, and experience during an alumni weekend. Take the Alumni Weekend Interest Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6YBKF5M

Marine copepod legs for #MicroscopyMonday! Exoskeleton (blue) stained with WGA and nuceli (pink-orange) stained with Hoescht. This image was placed #20 in Nikon’s 2025 Small World photomicrography competition. Imaged by Zachary Sanchez.

⭐️ Did you know we publish a bi-monthly newsletter? Subscribe to The Collecting Net for the latest stories, research highlights, education news, and more. 🔗 mbl.edu/news/newsletter

On Monday, undergraduate students in the 2026 Semester in Environmental Science (SES) course sampled water at multiple locations including Waquoit Bay to examine photosynthesis and chlorophyll content. 🌊 The goal: to compare marine and freshwater systems to glean insights

APPLICATIONS OPEN‼️ Apply to the Grass Fellowship by December 1 and gain access to research support including laboratory space, animals, equipment and supplies for one summer at the MBL. Partnered with @grassfoundation.bsky.social 🔗 More info here: go.mbl.edu/grass2026

Happy #MicroscopyMonday! This is a holomatography image of a larval tubeworm imaged on a Tomocube Mini. Imaged by students Le Pham and Sophia Aredas during the 2026 Molecular and Cell Biology of Symbiosis course.

Learning from experts and from one another—amidst an environment of non-model organisms, cutting-edge technology, and deep scientific history—has made for a pretty great summer for MBL’s students. Curious what they’ve accomplished? 🔗 Read here: go.mbl.edu/q8fua8

The Marine Biological Laboratory has expanded its Board of Trustees with the election of six distinguished leaders. 🔗 Full press release here: go.mbl.edu/2tyzi0

APPLICATIONS OPEN‼️ Apply to the Whitman Center Fellowship program and gain access to state-of-the-art instrumentation, innovative imaging technology, genome sequencing, and availability of model freshwater and marine organisms. 🔗 More info here: go.mbl.edu/whitman

Butterflies and axolotls: our acquisition systems had a busy summer at the MBL @mblscience.bsky.social ! 🦋🧠 This year, we supported Grass Fellow Jack Supple and Whitman Fellow Angelo Forli @aforli89.bsky.social with Open Ephys acquisition boards. Here’s what they’ve been up to.

Sarvesh Surve, a PhD student in the lab, is presenting the work he and many others in the class did, at the Microbial Diversity course @mblscience.bsky.social at the Microbial Dark Matter Symposium. This exciting work advances our understanding of CPRs. www.microbial-dark-matter-symposium.com

⏰ ROLLING ADMISSIONS! Apply to the Semester in Biological Discovery program by December 15, and gain immersive research experience in discovery-driven biological sciences. 🔗 More info here: go.mbl.edu/SBD

Join MBL Board Chair Bill Huyett in supporting the MBL Annual Fund. 🔗 www.mbl.edu/give/annual-fund

APPLICATIONS OPEN‼️ Volume Microscopy: from Array Tomography to PFIB SEM is a new course that will introduce participants into a dynamic area of technology development. Photo credit: Kristina D. Micheva 🔗 More info here: go.mbl.edu/vm

No, this isn’t a banana! For today's #MicroscopyMonday, we have a confocal image of a parasitoid wasp egg, filled with a symbiotic bacterium. Imaged by student Loretha Jack during the 2026 Molecular and Cell Biology of Symbiosis course.

🚤 What does it take to work on a specimen-collecting vessel? We spoke with Taylor Sakmar, the new Senior Collector at the MBL, about the importance of the Collections department, what he enjoys about his unique job, and more. 🔗 Read his "Take 5" here: go.mbl.edu/take5-sakmar

In 2018, five researchers from all different disciplines gathered for a National Science Foundation (NSF) Ideas Lab, themed around synthetic cells... 🔗 Full story here: go.mbl.edu/h2w013

MBL’s Molecular Mycology: Current Approaches to Fungal Pathogenesis (MOMY) course are studying pathogenic fungi that cause infections like brain inflammation. 🔗 Read more here: go.mbl.edu/uwoxpp

Students in the MBL's Semester in Environmental Science course spent several days in the field collecting measurements to help them model the photosynthetic productivity of oak pine forests on the Cape. #biology #environmentalscience #education

Happy #MicroscopyMonday! Check out this confocal image of #squid blood cells (known as hemocytes) from the hummingbird bobtail squid (Euprymna berryi). Imaged by student Yoon Chang during the 2026 Molecular and Cell Biology of Symbiosis course.

✨ A huge thank you to our Gemma team for their hard work collecting live specimens throughout the seasons that help MBL scientists study #development, #neurobiology, and so much more. The #science happening at MBL wouldn’t be possible without you.

A tiny crustacean, Parhyale hawaiensis, thrives along the seacoast amidst the changing tides. Yet until recently, no one knew the genes underpinning how these small shrimp-like creatures know the timing of the tides. 🔗 go.mbl.edu/12gg4q