Floating Laboratory Surfaces Aliens of the Sea
By: Ashley Peterson
No white lab coats necessary. Flip flops are encouraged on a unique shipboard laboratory floating off the coast of the Florida Keys. Aboard the floating lab are a team of scientific researchers from the University of Florida led by Dr. Leonid Moroz. They are on a quest to decode the genomic blueprints of the rarest and most fragile marine life.
As strange as it sounds, much of the interest in these alien-like creatures stems from brain science.
According to Moroz, “We cannot regenerate our brain, our spinal cord or efficiently heal wounds without scars.” Some simple sea creatures like those studied aboard the floating lab, like the comb jelly, can. If part of a comb jelly is cut off, the wound disappears within a few hours. By the next day; the lobe begins to grow back. These comb jellys also have neurons that are connected in circuitry that mirrors an elementary brain. When these “brains” are injured, some species of comb jellies can actually regenerate them in three to five days.
Researchers examine comb jelly specimens, by cutting them and then biopsying the healing tissue in an effort to identify the genetic activity that stimulates healing. If scientists can sequence the genomes of these creatures to better understand how they are able to regenerate tissue, the hope is that this can be applied in humans who have suffered brain and spinal cord injuries.
"Nature has found solutions to how to stay healthy," says Moroz, who also studies human brains when he's back on shore. "We need to learn how they do it. But they are so fragile, we have to do it here," at sea.
Previous endeavors to study rare marine biology and invertebrates involved collecting animals, freezing samples and shipping them back to the lab for genetic research. However, shipments often got lost in transit and some genetic material begins breaking down almost immediately after being caught.
But now, thanks to the floating lab and a high-tech super computer donated by Life Technologies called the Ion PGM, scientists are able to sequence DNA in real-time and send the data back to a lab on land using satellite technology.
"If the sea can't come to the lab, the lab must come to the sea," says Moroz.
The sea is full of alien-like creatures that resemble see-through snails, winged mollusks, miniature Chinese dragons with glowing eyes and floating hot-pink sacks that shimmer like opals in the sun. It is estimated that there are thousands of species yet to be identified. For Moroz and his team, he race is on to find them and keep them alive for study.
Their success may have a profound impact on the study of human brains. Researchers have sequenced the human genome but know very little about how it works. Perhaps answers lie in the genetic interactions of some of the oldest and strangest-looking creatures on the planet.