Single-celled algae are essential for life on our planet, but they aren’t often associated with pioneering breakthroughs in neuroscience. However, this year’s Nobel Prize for medicine, awarded to Peter Hegemann, Georg Nagel and Karl Deisseroth for research into ‘light-gated ion channels and optogenetics’ came directly from work examining the swimming of tiny green algae. Peter … Read more
The PlyMSEF Medal Lecture is a prestigious annual event celebrating significant contributions to marine science. It provides an opportunity to hear from leading researchers and celebrate Plymouth’s internationally recognised marine science community. Date: Wednesday 11 November 2026 Time: 6:15–8:00 pm Speaker: Professor Colin Brownlee, Marine Biological Association. This year’s lecture is titled Animal, vegetable and … Read more
The Marine Biological Association (MBA) has been awarded a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Urgency Grant to investigate the biological effects of the severe-to-extreme marine heatwave recently recorded in the English Channel, southern North Sea and Bay of Biscay.
MBA scientists Dr Glen Wheeler and Professor Colin Brownlee have contributed to a special issue of Botanica Marina on the ‘Physiology of marine photoautotrophs’ that celebrates the life and work of Prof John Raven FRS. John was a leader in the field of evolution and physiology of plants and algae and had close links to … Read more
An international team of scientists has taken a major step toward understanding one of Earth’s most important yet underexplored groups of organisms: diatoms. Scientists from the Marine Biological Association (MBA), including Senior Research Fellows Dr Katherine Helliwell and Dr Glen Wheeler, as well as researchers Yousef Touhami and Dr Trupti Gaikwad have joined more than … Read more
Scientists at the Marine Biological Association (MBA) have published new research revealing how an ancient group of aquatic fungi builds their cell walls, providing fresh insights into fungal evolution and establishing a little-studied aquatic fungus as an important model system for future bioscience research.
Researchers from the Marine Biological Association (MBA) and the University of Exeter’s Living Systems Institute (LSI) recently attended an interdisciplinary workshop focused on the cell and environmental biology of marine microbes and plankton. The event brought together academics working across a diverse range of disciplines, including marine microbiology, biophysics, structural biology, cell biology and ecology. … Read more
A new study indicates that major components of the animal nervous system are found in marine algae and play important roles in cellular communication. Multicellular organisms have developed many mechanisms to allow communication between individual cells. In animals, the amino acid glutamate acts as a neurotransmitter, allowing the transfer of information between neurons in the … Read more
Our oceans contain a vast community of calcifying algae, known as coccolithophores, that play a critical role in the global carbon cycle through their ability to produce calcium carbonate in huge quantities. Coccolithophores are particularly abundant in the Southern Ocean, an area known as the Great Calcite Belt, but we know little about these communities due to their remote location.
Scientists at the Marine Biological Association (MBA) and the University of Exeter have uncovered a key mechanism that helps diatoms – the microscopic algae that underpin marine food webs – survive when one of life’s essential nutrients runs low.
The Marine Biological Association
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The Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom is a registered charity in England and Wales (1155893), and is a company limited by Royal Charter (RC000865). The Marine Biological Association conducts, promotes and supports scientific research into all aspects of life in the sea.