Marine Biology

So I edit a marine biology journal. And I spend time every summer at
a marine biological laboratory–how does that square with leading an
institute that focuses on cognition? The answer to that question is
actually not as much of a stretch as one might think. Marine models
have been crucial for progress in neurobiology since mid-20th
century. The squid giant axon was the model for understanding the
basis of the action potential. The crustacean stomatogastric ganglion
has been a crucial for understanding the rules that allow for
compensation in neuronal networks. The sea slugs, Aplysia californica
and Hermissenda crassicornis, have helped us to get a handle on the
biophysics and molecular biology that underlie learning and memory.

Ultimately this type of research is based on the reasonable
assumption that the most important building blocks of neuronal
function have been conserved across phylogeny and the realization
that simple systems (such a slugs with brains that have 10,000
neurons instead of 100 billion) are often more amenable to
experimentation.

For me, this world of science first came alive in the late 1970’s
when I learned how to make intracellular recordings from the
photoreceptors of Hermissenda at Woods Hole. Observing the living
light response of a single cell was enough to pull me into a life of
science. At the same time, it introduced me into the world of
molecular signal transduction as I learned about a small, but very
important molecule called cyclic adenosine monophosphate.

But marine biology is a whole lot larger of a field than the
neurobiology that I’ve been writing about. Marine models are critical
for our understanding of such critical cellular processes as
fertilization, cell-cell recognition and mitosis. The molecular
motors that cells use to move needed components around were
discovered at Woods Hole (and a Nobel Prize awarded in consequence).
Lately the incredible species diversity of the Earth’s oceans–
something we knew very little about–was uncovered by the use of
genomics methodologies–also at Woods Hole.

I vividly recall my first graduate course: a semester’s introduction to
invertebrate zoology at Woods Hole in the Fall of 1978. It was during
that course that I learned (and experimented with) the very primitive
innate immune system of the sponge, Microciona prolifera. We would go
out and collect our experimental material from the local coastline
and then stay up late at night measuring the diameter of small sponge
colonies in different kinds of artificial sea water. That was very
different from working on Hermissenda’s neurons, but also enough to
direct me into a life of science.

Jim