Scintillon Institute investigator Dr. Nathan Shaner, in collaboration with colleagues at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, has published a paper in PLoS ONE describing the discovery of a major clue about how marine organisms produce light.

The Scintillion Institute’s Nathan Shaner and his collaborator Ute Hochgeschwender at Central Michigan University became recipients of a National Science Foundation (NSF) BRAIN EAGER grant for developing non-invasive optogenetics based on bioluminescence.

This project will take advantage of wild-type fluorescent proteins with novel optical properties to be cloned from a broad range of species, including several Great Barrier Reef corals made available through an international collaboration. 

The "A Bright Monomericgreen Fluorescentprotein Derived From Branchiostoma Lanceolatumpublication" was published in Nature Methods (10, 407-209, 2013)

We report a monomeric yellow-green fluorescent protein, mNeonGreen, derived from a tetrameric fluorescent protein from the cephalochordate Branchiostoma lanceolatum.