Research interests

I am currently associated with the laboratory of Prof. Naomi Pierce at Harvard Universtiy, as Tutor in biology at Harvard, and as Adjunct Scientist and Ellison Visiting Scholar at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole. Although my experimental focus is on marine organisms (especially molgulid ascidians, or “sea squirts”, and their microbial symbionts), I share with fellow members of the Pierce lab a strong interest in mutualism, coevolution , symbiosis, and molecular systematics. One reflection of those common interests is my current book-in-progress, The Evolutionary Dynamics of Endosymbiosis: Perspectives on Mutualistic and Parasitic Associations, for the University of Chicago Press.

At Harvard and the Marine Biological Laboratory, I am extending my research into the realm of genomics, using molecular data to probe the evolutionary relationships of the microbial symbionts (the peculiar, funguslike, apparently mutualistic protist “Nephromyces”and its intracellular bacteria) which inhabit the ductless “renal sac”of molgulids. Combining sequence data with morphology, host specificity, and other aspects of Nephromyces biology, I am also comparing the patterns of speciation between these microbes and their tunicate hosts. With collaborator Adam McCoy, we have obtained small-subunit rDNA sequences from Nephromyces. These sequence data, along with several structural feature of Nephromyces, indicate that these organisms are members of the apicomplexa, a group of parasitic and pathogenic protozoans, including human pathogens such as Toxoplasma and Plasmodium.
Nephromyces differs provocatively from its apicomplexan relatives in several ways, including its unsuusal life cycle; its apparently mutualistic habits (Nephromyces is the only mutualistic clade among the otherwise-parasitic apicomplexans); and the presence of intracellular bacteria. As an Ellison Visiting Scholar in the laboratory of Jennifer Wernegreen in the Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution at the Marine Biological Laboratory, I am currently sequencing  ssurDNA from the bacterial symbionts of Nephromyces.

I am also continuing to develop molgulids (whose renal sac sequesters calcium oxalate and urate concretions along with the symbionts) as a comparative animal model for study of kidney stone disease in humans. My continuing collaboration with Ann Beshensky (Medical College of Wisconsin) seeks to identify the factors responsible for the striking capacity of renal sac fluid to inhibit growth of calcium oxalate crystals.

Education

B.A. Cowell College, University of California, Santa Cruz (with honors)
Ph.D. Biology, Stanford University.
Certificate of completion, Russian Language, Leningrad State University and council for International Educational Exchange

Positions

1976-78 Miller Research Fellow, Dept. Botany, Univ. Calif. Berkeley
1978-85 Assistant Professor of Biology, Swarthmore College
1979-80/83-84 Independent Investigator, Marine Biological Lab., Woods Hole
1981-82 Visiting Scholar, Dept. of Botany, UC Berkeley & U. Washington
1985-93 Associate Research Marine Biologist and Lecturer, Institute of Marine Sciences, U.C. Santa Cruz
1993-1996 Research Marine Biologist, Institute Marine Sciences, U.C.Santa Cruz
1994-1997 Associate Professor, Life Sciences, Arizona State University West
(with tenure)
1997-2002 Professor of Physiology, Arizona State University West (with tenure)
1995- Visiting Scientist, Bodega Marine Laboratory (UC Davis)
2002-03 Radcliffe Institute Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University
2000-2005 Research Associate (Invertebrate Zoology), Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
2005- Tutor in Biology, Harvard University
2002- Adjunct Scientist, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole
2005 Ellison Visiting Scholar, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole

Selected Honors & Fellowships

1969-70 Woodrow Wilson Fellow
1979 Steps toward Independence Fellow, Marine Biological Laboratory
1981-82 American Association of University Women
Postdoctoral Fellow (Sarah Berliner Fellow)
1990- Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
2000 Individual Residency, Rockefeller Foundation Study and Conference Center, Bellagio, Italy
2002-03 Radcliffe Institute Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University

External Research funding

American Philosophical Society
Baker Foundation
National Institutes of Health
National Science Foundation
Research Corporation (Cottrell College Science Grants)
US Dept. Agriculture
Whitehall Foundation

Major professional service

1989-92 Electorate Nominating Committee, Section G (Biol, Sci.), Amer. Assoc. for the Advancement of Science (elected position)--Chair, 1991-92
1995-97 Treasurer, Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (formerly American Society of Zoologists) (elected position)

Selected invited lectures

1989, 1993 Gordon Research Conference on Calcium Oxalate (New Hampshire)
1989 Conference: "Symbiosis as the source of evolutionary innovation", Bellagio Study and Conference Center (Rockefeller Foundation), Lake Como, Italy
1990 IVth International Congress of Systematic and Evolutionary Biology, Univ. of Maryland
1992 VIIth International Symposium on Urolithiasis, Cairns, Australia
(plenary lecture)
1994 Section of Nephrology, University of Chicago Medical School
1994 Distinguished Guest Lecturer, 31st Annual Symposium on Family Therapy & Psychotherapy, Georgetown Family Center, Washington, D.C
1996 conference, "Organization to Organism: Biology as the Basis of Inventing Future organizational Forms" , Institute for the Future (Menlo Park, CA), Monterey, CA
1998 NIDDK-NIH Workshop on Pathogenesis, Treatment and Cure of Hyperoxaluria, Oxalosis and the Oxalate Stone Diseases , Bethesda Maryland
2000 conference on “The Relationship System and Individual Variation in Emotional Functioning”, Georgetown Family Center, Washington, D.C.
2001 Symposium, “Living Together: the dynamics of symbiosis” , Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology annual meeting, Chicago
2002 Darwin Day lecture, Dept. Biology, Virginia Commonwealth U.
2002 Featured speaker, 14th Annual Northern California Conference, Bowen Family Systems Theory and its Applications, Santa Rosa, CA

Selected public interviews

1994 Carol Yoon, "Odd Biology: Sea Squirt is a Three-in-One Creature", New York Times, March 15, 1994 pp. B5-B6
1994 Ole Hendriksen, "Angling for Analogies: aquatic animals model human diseases". National Center for Research Resources Reporter (NIH) 18, no. 6, pp. 4-7 (cover story)
1995 Beth Livermore, "Fishing for Cures", Popular Science, 62-64.

Selected publications

1978 M.B. Saffo and H.A. Lowenstam. Calcareous deposits in the renal sac of a molgulid tunicate. Science, 200:1166-1168.

1982 M.B. Saffo. Distribution of the endosymbiont Nephromyces Giard within the ascidian family Molgulidae. Biological Bulletin, 162:95-104.

1982 M.B. Saffo and W. L. Davis. Modes of infection of the ascidian Molgula manhattensis by its endosymbiont Nephromyces Giard. Biological Bulletin, 162: 105-112.

1983 M.B. Saffo and R. Nelson. The cells of Nephromyces: developmental stages of a single life sycle. Can.J. Botany 61: 3230-3239.

1987 M.B. Saffo. New light on seaweeds. BioScience, 37:654-664 664 (cover story)..

1988 M.B. Saffo. Nitrogen waste or nitrogen source? Urate degradation in the renal sac of molgulid tunicates. Biological Bulletin 175:403-409.

1990 M.B. Saffo. Symbiosis within a symbiosis: intracellular bacteria in the endosymbiotic protist Nephromyces. Marine Biology, 107: 291-296.

1991 M.B. Saffo. Symbiogenesis and the evolution of mutualism: lessons from the Nephromyces-bacterial-molgulid symbiosis. In: L. Margulis & R. Fester, eds. Symbiosis as a Source of Evolutionary Innovation: Speciation and Morphogenesis. MIT Press: 410-429.

1991 M.B. Saffo. Symbiosis in evolution. In: E.C. Dudley, ed. The Unity of Evolutionary Biology. Dioscorides Press, Portland, Oregon. pp. 674-680.

1992 M.B. Saffo. Invertebrates in endosymbiotic associations. in: The impact of symbiosis on invertebrate physiology, ecology and evolution.(M.B. Saffo, ed.) Amer. Zool. 32: 557-565.

1992 M.B. Saffo. Coming to terms with a field: words and concepts in symbiosis. Symbiosis 14 :17-31.

1999 M.B. Saffo. Symbiosis. in Encyclopedia of Reproduction, E. Knobil and J.D. Neill, eds. Vol. 4: 699-702. Academic Press.

2001 M.B. Saffo. Complexity, variability and change in symbiotic associations. Family Systems. 6: 3-19.

2002 M.B. Saffo. Mutualistic Symbioses. In: Life Sciences Encyclopedia Nature Publishing Group, Macmillan, London. Vol 12, pp. 539-546.

2002 M.B. Saffo. Themes from Variation: Probing the Commonalities of Symbiotic Associations. Integrative and Comparative Biology (formerly American Zoologist) . vol. 42 (2),:291-294.

2005 M.B. Saffo. Accidental Elegance. The American Scholar. 74 (3): 18-27. (article on chance and evolution). (Lead story).

2005 M.B. Saffo. Symbiosis: the way of all life. In: J. Seckbach, ed. Life as We Know It. Springer-Verlag, in press.

With thanks to author Carol Yoon (and the New York Times), photographer Terence McCarthy and illustrator Roberto Osti for permission to reprint the attached article from the March 1994 New York Times

 

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