Chief to Defend

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T. L T. Britain’s biomedical establishment has given an enthusiastic welcome to the incoming chief executive of the Medical Research Council (MRC). John Savill was named last week as the man who will steer the agency through a round of public-spending cuts expected Algae cohabit with salamander embryos this autumn. In 2008–09, the government- in their eggs — and inside their cells. funded agency spent £704.2 million (US$1.1 billion) on research, making it one of Europe’s largest national supporters of biomedical research. But all of Britain’s Salamander’s egg surprise research councils recently drew up strategies to deal with cuts of up to 20% over PUnta del este, UrUgUay mitochondria might be taking advantage of four years (see Nature 466, 420–421; 2010). Scientists have stumbled across the first both oxygen and carbohydrate generated by the “I find it hard to think of anybody else example of a photosynthetic organism living alga’s photosynthesis. who is better able to defend the MRC,” says inside a vertebrate’s cells. The discovery is So when do the algae enter the embryos’ Keith Peters, former president of learned a surprise because the adaptive immune cells? A time-lapse video made by Roger society the Academy of Medical Sciences. systems of vertebrates generally destroy Hangarter at Indiana University in Savill, who is currently head of the foreign biological material. In this case, Bloomington, and presented by Kerney at the College of Medicine and Veterinary however, a symbiotic alga seems to be meeting, reveals a fluorescent green flash — an Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, surviving unchallenged — and might be giving algal bloom — next to each embryo just as its UK, is also chief scientific adviser for health its host a solar-powered metabolic boost. nervous system begins to form. Most research to the Scottish government. He will replace The embryos of the spotted salamander on spotted salamander embryos has focused Leszek Borysiewicz, who is leaving the MRC (Ambystoma maculatum) have long been on earlier periods of development, which might to become vice-chancellor at the University known to enjoy a mutualistic relationship with explain why algae have not been seen inside of Cambridge, UK. Borysiewicz’s departure, the single-celled alga Oophila amblystomatis. the cells before. one year before his four-year term was due The salamanders’ viridescent eggs are One of Kerney’s most curious discoveries to expire, had prompted concerns that a coloured by algae living in the jelly-like material suggests that the algae may be a maternal gift. power vacuum at the top of the agency that surrounds the embryo. The embryos He has found the same algae in the oviducts of might allow the government’s Department produce nitrogen-rich waste that is useful to adult female spotted salamanders, where the of Health to steer it away from basic science the algae, which, in turn, supply the developing embryo-encompassing jelly sacs first form. and into more applied biomedical work (see embryos with extra oxygen. The algae clearly David Wake, an emeritus professor at the Nature 462, 553; 2009). The appointment benefit their salamander hosts: Lynda Goff, a University of California, Berkeley, who watched may assuage those concerns — colleagues molecular marine biologist at the University of Kerney’s presentation, wonders whether algae say that Savill commands the respect of California, Santa Cruz, showed 30 years ago could be getting into the reproductive cells. basic researchers and of clinicians, and that salamander embryos lacking algae in their This would “really challenge the dogma” that knows the importance of both. “That is surrounding jelly are slower to hatch. vertebrates’ immune systems ban such close essential to secure the future of the MRC,” Ryan Kerney of Dalhousie University relationships, he says. Both Wake and David says Colin Blakemore, a neuroscientist at the in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, has now Buckley, who studies salamander development University of Oxford, UK, and Borysiewicz’s found that these algae also live inside the at the National Museum of Natural Sciences in predecessor at the MRC. embryo’s cells. Such a close coexistence with a Madrid, agree that the work might tell us more Savill trained as a medical doctor and photosynthetic organism has previously been about how vertebrate cells learn to identify was formerly head of Edinburgh’s MRC found only in invertebrates, such as corals. intruders. Centre for Inflammation Research. “John is Kerney took long-exposure fluorescent images “It makes me wonder if other species very experienced at working at the clinical– of pre-hatchling salamander embryos, and saw of salamander that have known symbiotic basic science interface,” says Kay Davies, scattered dots in the unstained tissue — an relationships with algae also harbour algae honorary director of the MRC Functional indicator that it might contain chlorophyll. inside their cells,” adds Daniel Buchholz, a Genomics Unit and head of the Department Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) developmental biologist at the University of of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at images showed mitochondria in the salamander Cincinnati in Ohio. “I think that if people start the University of Oxford. “He is tough and cells clustering close to the algae. Reporting the looking we may see many more examples.” ■ dedicated to the scientific enterprise.” discovery on 28 July at the Ninth International Anna Petherick Savill, who was not available for interview, Congress of Vertebrate Morphology in For a longer version of this story, will start at the MRC on 1 October. ■ Punta del Este, Kerney suggested that the see http://go.nature.com/l2drrP Daniel Cressey