Lab Notes

Emily Spaulding & Prayag Murawala

Research & Training Awards

Recent National Institutes of Health awards will provide sustaining, multiyear funding for two faculty researchers, while a third expands the Laboratory’s global role as a training ground for advanced science. Emily Spaulding, Ph.D., and Prayag Murawala, Ph.D., each won a Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award worth more than $2 million over five years. The MIRA program provides ongoing support for innovative scientists pursuing a broad range of experiments, allowing flexibility to follow promising new directions. Murawala also led an effort to expand the Lab’s “ReBilD: Emerging Leaders in Regenerative Biology and Development” training initiative, winning a $2.3 million NIH award to convene international leaders in regenerative biology to mentor the next generation of scientists in the field.

Zebrafish research for MDI Bioscience

MDI Bioscience

MDI Bio Lab’s initiative to translate its molecular and comparative biology expertise into direct human health applications is gaining momentum. In one effort, President Hermann Haller, M.D., and his team filed a patent application for a new method of measuring blood vessel health. In a separate project that draws on a collection of some 1,400 microalgae strains at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, researchers identified a North Atlantic seaweed extract with strong anti-inflammatory properties; it was tested first in transgenic zebrafish, then validated using “organ-on-a-chip” technology — tiny devices that use living human cells to mimic an organ’s behavior. Data analysis from the Lab’s Comparative Genomics & Data Science Core (opposite page) is helping identify which inflammatory pathways the extract is acting on.

PFAS study samples

Community Engagement

MDI Bio Lab continues to leverage its unique resources to play a positive role in surrounding communities, engaging hundreds of residents in hands-on science, education and public health over the past year, including the MDI Science Cafe series and the annual Family Science Night. The Community Environmental Health Laboratory, directed by Jane Disney, Ph.D., continues engaging citizens around health challenges posed by environmental contaminants such as PFAS “forever chemicals” and arsenic. In a new program, her laboratory is working with Trenton, Maine, families to test well water for contaminants while tracking potential health effects through blood samples and surveys. In another, it is working to measure and stem the flow of PFAS into Acadia National Park and its estuaries.

Neal Lab renovation progress

Infrastructure Investments

Campus construction is on an ambitious new track, aided by significant public investment. Last fall builders broke ground on a $1.6 million overhaul of the century-old Neal Laboratory, which will become an applied science research center for the Lab’s MDI Bioscience initiative. Completion is expected this fall, just as work begins on historic Bowen Hall, which will undergo a $1.94 million transformation into a new Center for Advancing Science Education & Entrepreneurship. Both federally-funded projects were championed by Maine Senators Susan Collins and Angus King. This spring the Maine Technology Institute awarded an additional $960,000 in voter-approved bond funds for MDI Bioscience facilities.