Visit the Stocker Lab

The members of the Stocker lab “spy on the lives of microbes.” They use microfluidics to mimic and manipulate a microbe’s environment, and video microscopy and image analysis to capture and quantify the microbes’ behavior. They want to learn about marine microbes and their role in the health and disease of ocean ecosystems.

 

 

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arrowStocker Lab’s Stunning Coral Wins A Prize on Oceans at MIT

arrowRead Oceans at MIT’s The Hidden Life of Ocean Microbes, how Stocker’s lab is starting to comprehend how life at the microscale can shape the entire ocean ecosystem.

arrowRead MIT New article on coral research in the Stocker Lab called Homing in on Stressed Coral

Featured Stories | September 2, 2014

Corals, tiny engineers of their own homes

By Genevieve Wanucha

Corals are not passive organisms that rely on ocean currents as previously assumed; rather they are active engineers of their home environment. According to new research from Professor Roman Stocker’s Environmental Microfluidics Lab, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the cilia on the coral surface beat water into “violent” swirls that pull nutrients toward the coral, while evacuating toxic waste products, such as excess oxygen. The findings increase our understanding of how corals can respond to changing environmental conditions and fight disease.

Check out this video by MIT News, along with the companion feature story, Nature’s Tiny Engineers, and the BBC News coverage of this study, How corals stir up their world.

Through this line of work, researchers in the Stocker lab produced the photograph “Invisible Coral Flows,” which won first place in the photography category of the 2013 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge, a competition held by National Science Foundation and AAAS. Read more in Oceans at MIT’s Stocker Lab’s Stunning Coral Wins A Prize.