Home / Science / Motel Lab Yields Two New Microbe Species
Motel Lab Yields Two New Microbe Species
26 Sep
Summary
- Two new species of photosynthetic Paulinella microbes were discovered.
- The discovery occurred in a makeshift lab set up in a motel room.
- Paulinella offers insights into a key evolutionary event in life's history.
Two new species of a single-celled organism, Paulinella, were discovered by scientists in a makeshift laboratory within a Nags Head, North Carolina motel room in spring 2025. This discovery, published in the Journal of Phycology, adds to the known six photosynthetic Paulinella species globally.
These microbes are significant because they offer a rare, recent example of endosymbiosis, a process that occurred 1.5 billion years ago and led to complex photosynthetic life on Earth. Studying Paulinella's chromatophores, which were once free-living bacteria, can illuminate how this fundamental evolutionary transition occurred and potentially how to engineer new photosynthetic organisms.
The research was partly catalyzed by disruptions to federal science funding in early 2025, which temporarily impacted scientists like Dr. Julia Van Etten. This challenging period fostered collaboration, leading to the motel room expedition with biologist Andrew Willoughby and researcher John Burns.
Further DNA sequencing confirmed the two new species. Scientists are continuing the search for more Paulinella species, partnering with citizen scientists, aiming to unlock further secrets about the evolution of life and its potential existence elsewhere in the universe.
