A Day in the Life of Two Sea Star Labs | The Node
In this blog post for The Node, three MBL researchers explain why they love the sea star as a research organism and the questions it is helping them to ask.
What comes to mind when I say, “sea star”? For me, I think of easily accessible eggs that we can fertilized in vitro to make completely clear larvae that grow in a 6-well dish. Ah yes, I guess you were also thinking about snorkeling in a transparent ocean!
My name is Margherita Perillo and I am a Research Scientist at the MBL in beautiful Woods Hole right in Cape Cod. My research focuses mostly on understanding tissue and organ morphogenesis: How do individual cells group together to form complex organs? The system I chose to establish to investigate this question is the sea star Patiria miniata larva. In this short article, together with Zak Swartz (Assistant Scientist at MBL who also works with sea stars) and Jamie MacKinnon (Research Assistant from the Swartz Lab), we explain why we love this research animal. Read rest of the post here.
A Day in the Life of Two Sea Star Labs | The Node