Biotech Career Profiles

Norman Wainwright, Ph.D.

Senior Scientist
Marine Biological Laboratory
Woods Hole, MA


Norman Wainwright is shown holding
a Limulus in his lab.

 

Neptune is the name of the Roman god of the sea. I am originally from a small town on the New Jersey coast, named Neptune, so it may not be surprising that I eventually ended up working with marine organisms. I attended the University of Vermont to study biology and stayed there for graduate work, performing research on the control of cell division in the lens of the eye while finishing my Ph.D. degree. After graduation, I spent two years at Edinburgh University in Scotland, doing postdoctoral research and training in molecular biology. I worked another year in molecular biology back in the United States, at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology, a research organization run by Hoffmann La Roche Pharmaceutical Company. I wanted to apply some of the modern techniques of molecular biology and gene cloning to marine organisms, and when the possibility of a job in Woods Hole, Mass. became available, I took it. I have been at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole for about 10 years, studying how the horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus, protects itself from bacterial infections. A product made from the blood of the horseshoe crab, called Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL) is a very sensitive test for bacterial toxins and is now used to detect very small quantities of toxin in human pharmaceuticals and medical devices. We are now applying the same techniques with LAL to verify cleanliness of spacecraft and are part of the NASA effort to discover microbial life on Mars and other planets.