Woods Hole Lab Faces Uncertain Future

Celebrating its centennial, the Marine Biological Laboratory adapts to a new era in which money talks as loudly as science WOODS HOLE, MASS.—When Harlyn 0. Halvorson, the new director of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, blows out the candles for his institution’s 100th birthday this summer, no one will have to ask what he wished for. The laboratory needs more money, more room, and more molecular biology if it is to remain in the forefront of scientific research during its second century. Even during the frenetic summer, when scientists from around the world migrate to Woods Hole to probe fundamental questions of biology, the problems are not difficult to spot. Witness biologist Diane Holmstrom toiling at a makeshift hallway lab bench because of a shortage of facilities. Or drop in on the small wooden building where squid and other marine creatures wait to do their part for science, a building that has barely adequate space and water quality controls. Or make a list of the scientists who don’t come anymore, because the MBL magic has lost some of its luster. Halvorson’s mandate is to tackle these problems. But to get the two new buildings and the $50 million endowment that top his wish list, the famous and venerable institution is being forced to take a reluctant plunge into unfamiliar waters. The lab has long prided itself on being run by scientists for scientists, without the meddling of outsiders. And by most accounts, it has always been a special, almost enchanted place—an invigorating summer camp for biology that has functioned, in the words of noted physician and biologist Lewis Thomas, as the nation’s unofficial “National Biological Laboratory.” But tradition and results don’t pay bills. And some scientists have voiced fears that the new realities of raising money and upgrading facilities could threaten the lab’s cherished character. “If we make it finer, bigger, fancier, it may become more like a university. The scientists won’t work with the same intensity, the same camaraderie,” says John W Moore, a neurobiologist at Duke University who has been affiliated with the Woods Hole lab since 1952. They also fret over the consequences of going outside the science community and its traditions to raise dollars. It sent shivers through many a Woods Hole veteran when, last year, the laboratory put its first businessman, D. Thomas Trigg, a retired bank executive, on its 10-member executive committee. And this year the lab is working with Massachusetts congressmen and a lobbyist in an attempt to wrest a direct appropriation out of Congress. “I have great worries about that route,” says Harvard biologist John E. Dowling. For one thing, he says, squeezing money from Congress bypasses peer review, inevitably taking power from the scientists themselves. But he sees no alternative. “Unfortunately,” he says, “it’s the only way, if we’re going to move ahead at the MBL.” At an institution beset with financial worries—most recently the decision by the National Institutes of Health to move some of its own researchers from Woods Hole back to Bethesda—such reluctance to adopt the high-powered lobbying and fund-raising tactics of modern science may smack of Victorian prudishness. But then, again, the Marine Biological Laboratory often seems like a throwback to just that era, a place where scientists could gather for the summer to work and learn far from the worries of tenure, promotions, or grantgetting. Therein has always been the lab’s special charm. “No university in the world has an environment or people quite like it,” says John G. Hildebrand, a member of MBL’s executive committee and director of the Division of Neurobiology at the University of Arizona. Though the institution’s beginnings were modest—eight students, seven investigators, and two instructors showed up for its first summer in 1888—the lab was planned from the start to be unique. Zoologist Charles Otis Whitman, the leader of that first summer’s group, vowed to “organize one of the most productive biological stations in the world.” The founders chose Woods Hole, a sleepy shingle and clapboard fishing village on Cape Cod, because there a felicitous convergence of the warm Gulf Stream and cool Labrador currents spawned a rich diversity of flora and fauna. Scientists could easily collect an ample supply of fresh marine organisms well-suited for investigating the mysteries of biology. The fledgling laboratory became a mecca for biologists from all over the globe—a hotel for scientific research, as one early director described it. It was at MBL—the world’s best source of fresh squid and their giant axons—that biologists Andrew Huxley and Alan Hodgkin discovered the basic mechanisms of nerve action, winning them the 1963 Nobel Prize. It was at a lab bench at MBL that 1933 Nobel laureate Thomas Hunt Morgan uncovered the mysteries of fruit fly genetics. Still another Nobelist, George Wald, credits much of his pioneering work on vision and vitamin A to the laboratory’s inexhaustible supply of fresh research subjects. Yet the little fishing village on Cape Cod has always been more than just a place to do science; it has also been a place to discover new techniques, new approaches, and new ideas—part of Whitman’s original plan that research and instruction were to go hand in hand. Each year, some 150 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and sometimes even Nobel Prize winners or laureates-to-be like Donald Glaser (physics, 1960) and D. Carleton Gadjusek (physiology, 1976), have taken one of several eight- to 10-week courses designed to provide them with the latest experimental methods. One of the lab’s newer courses, Biology of Parasitism, is helping to revolutionize parasitology by applying new molecular biology and biochemical approaches to understanding host-parasite interac- tions. Medical doctors, biochemists, immunologists, and entomologists flock to Woods Hole to learn about malaria vaccine development from NIH’s Lou Miller and Victor Nussenzweig of New York University, and to hear about disease control in Africa from George Nelson of the Liverpool School of Medicine. In 1987, a Brazilian medical doctor left with promising results for priming the immune system against the schistosomiasis parasite. The founders’ emphasis on learning proved to be a wise move, for like the currents around Cape Cod, the convergence of students, instructors, and scientists from different places and disciplines has, over the years, provided a rich diversity of ideas. “It’s been like a nerve center,” says Garland Allen, a professor of biology at Washington University. “There has always been tremendous cross-fertilization going on. And my own view as a historian of science is that the greatest advances usually resulted from cross-fertilization.” The scientists crowd into small laboratories, jostle at the dock for the day’s catch of squid and other creatures, and eat and drink together in the Swope Center or one of the nearby bars and restaurants. They share data, argue about theo ries, hammer out discrepancies in results, and brainstorm with investigators outside their narrow specialties. Students challenge Nobel laureates, and vice versa. “There’s a lot of discussion,” says Wald. “That’s a very exciting thing.” And what makes this fertile atmosphere possible? Many researchers say that it stems directly from the lab’s unique governance— the fact that scientists have always remained in firm control. This state of affairs dates all the way back to 1897, when rich board members from Boston’s Women’s Education Association and the Society of Natural History became concerned that the lab was expanding too fast and costing too much money. At a board meeting in Woods Hole that August, they threatened to withdraw their support. But the scientists fought back, says Jane Maienschein, associate professor of philosophy and zoology at Arizona State University and author of an informal history of the MBL. After the trustees caught the last train back to Boston, the scientists who remained voted them all out of office—and scientists have held the reins ever since. Six years later, for example, the Carnegie Institution offered to support the lab in return for control. That, too, was turned down. Of course, in the early days, the lab’s problems were easier to solve. During the 1920s, MBL director Frank Lillie simply asked his rich inlaws to write a check at the end of each summer to cover the losses. Firm control in scientific hands has remained a distinguishing characteristic of the lab to this day. While a rival like Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is governed by an executive board that includes major donors, members of the local community, and representatives from other research institutions, MBL has always had scientists in every key position. Halvorson is a molecular biologist, for example; associate director Ray L. Epstein was trained in bacteriology. In fact, the nonprofit Marine Biological Laboratory is “owned” by a corporation of about 700 scientists who pay $60 to $100 a year in dues and who have voting privileges at the annual meeting in August. A bow to changing times are 12 lawyers, community leaders, and businessmen added in 1975 to the 65-member Board of Trustees to serve as advisers. But until last year, the 10-person Executive Committee was entirely composed of scientists. “This is an institution that serves scientists essentially at their behest,” says J. Richard Whittaker, who runs the MBL Laboratory of Developmental Genetics. “We, the investigators and the owners of this institution, through our committees, have the right to decide how the institution will operate and the direction of the research it will carry out.” But control doesn’t translate into cold cash. Revenue from scientists’ dues is minuscule compared to the roughly $11.5 million it costs to keep MBL a float each year. About half the money comes from grants and another quarter from fees for services. But it’s not enough. The 1988 predicted deficit is some $88,000. The 1988 deficit won’t be news around the lab. Between 1972 and 1982, the ink flowed red for seven of the 10 years, with annual losses ranging from $36,000 to $322,000. By the mid-1970s, “cozy, quaint,” had become somewhat of a euphemism. The main building, Lillie, needed more than a million dollars in repairs. The lab’s leaders tried to solve these problems. In 1975, MBL set up its first year-round program, the Ecosystems Center. Designed to investigate global ecology, the 15-scientist center and the other year-round tenants that followed caused bitter strife among the summer regulars, some of whom feared that the labs’ traditional activities would be squeezed out. “The uniqueness of MBL is its history as a summer facility,” says Benjamin Kaminer of the Boston University School of Medicine. “It took a bit of doing and rethinking to realize no harm would come if it became a year-round lab.” Next to become full-time scientists at MBL were investigators from the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke, who depended on a fresh supply of marine organisms for their work. Since then, a dozen other year-round labs have sprung up, claiming a third of the space at MBL. Supported by outside grants, they contribute about 70% of the institution’s revenue. But the lab’s leaders realized that a few year-round activities, even if lucrative, would not save the institution. “There was a growing sense that we needed both the concerned opinion of the scientist and the sophisticated knowledge of people who know business and finance,” says Hildebrand. The nature of biological research was also changing. Gone was the era where science could be done with a lab bench, a microscope, and running seawater. Cell culture and immunology work required animal care facilities, recombinant DNA work called for sophisticated equipment, and there were demands for a machine shop and better computer-imaging capabilities. All these would be expensive for a program that still primarily operates only three or four months a year, but they were—and still are— vitally needed. In 1984, director Paul Gross’ report was blunt: “If it is to survive as a headlight, rather than a tail-light, of biology, MBL must practice and teach the most advanced experimentation, no matter how much it costs.” No one got too worried in 1983 when MBL hired its first full-time development officer. But a spirited debate erupted four years later when the lab’s leaders proposed putting D. Thomas Trigg, the first nonscientist, on the 10-member executive committee. “A number of scientists were afraid that they would lose control of the institution, that they would be diluted out of the decision tree,” says Epstein. But even though they won the Trigg battle, proponents of these moves soon learned that they were continuing to lose the financial war. In a major blow in 1986, for example, the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke decided it could save money by moving its 25 scientists back to Bethesda for part of each year. The decision will cost MBL about $400,000 this year. There are other pressing problems. The laboratory has always depended on attracting the best scientists. But the financial woes have driven the price of lab space so high that granting agencies are increasingly reluctant to foot the bill, especially for younger scientists. And even if they snare a grant, many scientists are not able to afford the soaring cost of living in and around the town of Woods Hole, now a popular summer resort. “That may be worse than the rent of lab space,” says Hildebrand. A cottage can cost more than $10,000 a season. But there is another, more irksome reason for a recent drop-off in applicants to MBL’s summer programs. Some scientists fear getting behind in their research because the laboratory no longer offers the sophisticated facilities they need. The same factors hamper the lab’s ability to recruit course directors and instructors. To keep the place bristling with new ideas, MBL's leaders try to ensure that one-third of the summer scientists are new each year. But everyone in the 1988 group had been to the lab before. So if hotshot fund raisers on staff, prominent businessmen on the executive committee, year-round programs, and higher fees haven’t solved MBL’s problems, is the ballgame over? Not if new director Halvorson and the executive committee have anything to say about it. Their latest scheme involves substantially increasing MBL's year-round research activities by establishing a Marine Biomedical Institute for Advanced Studies. “Unless we bring to the MBL the strength of new year-round centers of research, it won’t be able to sustain even its summer program,” warns Prosser Gifford, chairman of the Board of Trustees. In fact, Halvorson doesn’t merely want to catch up: He wants to burnish the “headlight” of biology so that it shines brightly for another century. He calculates that it will take more than 70 million $50 million as an endowment for courses, housing, the library, and lab rent, and the rest to construct the new marine resources center and a 40,000-square-foot lab building for the biomedical institute. The new facility will house about 24 neuroscientists, cell biologists, and geneticists who will study everything from embryology to the role of marine species as indicators of pollution. But there are some who believe that the cure could kill the patient. Might MBL move so much in an administrative, “big science” direction that its magic as a melting pot of disciplines and ideas will be lost? “The more very large grants you have, the more you’re subject to dictation,” says Garland Allen. “When labs get to be run more like corporations, they become homog- enized. If there’s a loss of diversity, there’s also a loss of imagination.” Last summer, all of these concerns were tearing MBL apart. The problems seemed enormous, the potential solutions threatening. Everyone knew that big changes were essential, yet no one was sure what the consequences would be. A leadership vacuum made matters worse: Gross, director for almost a decade, had left and Halvorson had not yet come aboard. But by last month, Halvorson had already pointed MBL toward a brave, new future. And many of the most vocal worriers have become resigned—or even, in some quarters, optimistic. “MBL has gotten a little more rigid, more formalized, but it’s not overwhelmingly huge,” says Whittaker. “It’s still possible to interact with the people you want to interact with.” And Halvorson, for one, vows that a scientist will always be the one who blows out the lab’s birthday candles. Tucson, Ariz.-based freelancer Elizabeth Pennisi spent last summer at the Marine Biological Laboratory as a science-writing fellow.

Woods Hole Lab Faces Uncertain Future

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