About Physiology

History: The MBL Physiology Course was founded by Jacques Loeb in 1892 and is one of the oldest continually running biology courses in the world. This intensive five-week laboratory course has educated generations of leading biologists and fostered groundbreaking biological discoveries, including the Nobel prize-winning discovery of cyclin B.

As physiology has evolved to embrace modern microscopy and computational methods and incorporate the latest biological techniques, so has the Physiology Course. Today, the course is at the forefront of new tools—molecular, computational, biophysical—as it prepares students to tackle emerging biological questions. To teach this modern approach to research, faculty from the biological sciences and physical sciences, including engineering and computational sciences, come together each summer with an equally diverse set of students from all over the world to create a unique curiosity-driven training environment that mixes cell biology, biophysics, and computational methods in biology.

What to expect: The Physiology Course is designed to promote learning by doing, with an emphasis on stimulating experimental creativity and applying interdisciplinary approaches to fundamental biological problems. The course is a sleep-away summer camp for scientists: expect to do a lot of science, make new  friends, and also have lots of fun! 

After a three-day crash course that teaches basic concepts and skills, students participate in a series of research rotations (each two weeks) focused on active research problems brought by the course faculty using state-of-the art microscopy and laboratory techniques in a highly collaborative setting. Because the rotations focus on unanswered questions rather than demonstration experiments, students in the course will have the opportunity to make new discoveries as part of the learning experience. Students with biological backgrounds will leave the course with a new understanding of cutting-edge biological techniques, hands-on experience with advanced microscopy and scientific equipment, and the ability to computationally analyze data. Students with engineering/physical/computational science backgrounds will leave the course able to culture cells, carry out independent experiments, discuss biological concepts, and contribute their expertise to answer modern cell biological questions.

Recent student-designed projects include: exploring how molecular condensates impact gene expression, characterizing Stentor’s regeneration after single-cell surgery, understanding how Toxoplasma gondii harness the cytoskeleton to enter cells, analyzing how macrophages and T cells make decisions about what targets to engage, inducing mating behavior in choanoflagellates with calcium signaling, characterizing filament elongation of actins from archaea and bacteria, exploring how light activates multicellular contractility in animal-like protists, and discovering that viral proteins hijack the host actin cytoskeleton to trigger cell-cell fusion.

Daily schedule: Each morning begins at 9AM with an invited speaker talking about their cutting-edge research, followed by a student-only discussion with the speaker. Students then go to lab to plan experiments for the day with the course faculty and teaching assistants. During dinner, there’s typically time for students to go to the beach, exercise, socialize, practice for the annual softball game, or do laundry; we also have a few afternoon field trips, like collecting Stentor from a local pond or a boat trip on MBL’s research vessel, Gemma. Afternoons and after-dinner are dedicated to data collection and analysis, with ample guidance from faculty and teaching assistants. Social hour is often punctuated by karaoke or time spent brainstorming around the whiteboard. The microscopes are often humming late into the night. It’s a fun and energizing environment.

Join us! Graduate students, post-docs, select junior faculty (particularly those aiming to change or expand fields) and others with equivalent levels of experience are encouraged to apply. The typical class includes scientists with backgrounds in everything from the biological sciences to engineering, physics, and data science. Admission to MBL courses is “need-blind”—funding will be found for you if you’re accepted to the course. We are committed to recruiting underrepresented minorities and women to both the student body and faculty. Please apply!