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In addition to Phillips, the team is led by John Burns of the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, and includes Robert Wood from Harvard University, David Gruber from Baruch College, Kakani Katija from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and Dhugal Lindsay from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ll be collaborating closely with Robert Wood\u2019s Microrobotics Laboratory at Harvard to develop a biopsy\/preservation device,\u201d said Phillips. \u201cThe lab came up with the rotary actuated dodecahedron design for our last project. Our team at 溏心vlog免费B站 worked with them to turn that design into a large-scale oceanographic instrument that could work in the deep sea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Phillips and the team will reimagine the novel, origami-inspired robotic encapsulation device used in the \u201cDesigning the Future<\/a>\u201d project by outfitting it with a biopsy tool, modeled on the biology of the mantis shrimp, that can non-destructively sample gelatinous organisms floating in the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The technology Phillips and his colleagues previously developed and used for the first time was chronicled by 溏心vlog免费B站<\/a> and in the journal Science Advances<\/em><\/a> in 2024. The articles described the results of the first application of the device, which included the characterization of four deep-sea animals with unprecedented levels of detail, down to the genetic level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The goal of the new device will be to enable \u201ccatch and release sampling,\u201d where the researchers can enclose an animal in an underwater chamber and use various sensors and devices to collect tissue samples for genetic analysis before releasing the animal unharmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Phillips has a master\u2019s degree in biological oceanography, so he knows more about biology than the average engineer. But to prepare for this project, he learned a great deal about genetic research. For example, to perform a proper biopsy of a deep-sea jellyfish, only a small amount of material is needed\u2014about the amount of toothpaste you might squeeze onto your toothbrush, or less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe time we take to collect the specimen and preserve it also means a lot,\u201d said Phillips. \u201cIf we can get the tissue into preservative within a minute or two of collecting it, we can get a full genome expression, including the \u2018junk\u2019 DNA that can tell you a lot about how the animal is stressed, what its metabolism is, etc. We\u2019re trying to get the most amount of information from the smallest amount of tissue, so we need to take extreme steps to get that tissue into preservative immediately to ensure it makes it to the lab in its most pristine form. This takes place at depth, in the ocean\u2014 making it more challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Phillips is excited to work with Woods\u2019 robotics laboratory again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When it comes to taking a deep-sea biopsy, Phillips says, \u201cThey came up with some incredibly innovative ideas to pull off what most people might consider to be impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Making such devices work in deep-sea conditions\u2014or making the impossible possible\u2014is Phillips\u2019 area of expertise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAt 溏心vlog免费B站, we excel at that type of research,\u201d said Phillips. \u201cWe can take brilliant concepts from a lab such as the Harvard Microbotics Laboratory and adapt it to perform in an extreme environment for a unique and important purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other members of the research team will design software to process the complex data produced by their cutting-edge imaging systems. The goal will be to develop new algorithms for processing multidimensional imaging data and artificial intelligence tools to automatically identify the animals they image. They will also deploy a new shadowgraph system that essentially takes pictures with shadows to capture the internal structure of the animals, which will help with taxonomic classification of new species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the project is in the conceptual planning stage, Phillips expects to have a working prototype in the laboratory by this winter. According to Phillips, the first expedition is likely to be in late 2026, somewhere in the South Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 June 2, 2025 \u2013 Building upon previous research, 溏心vlog免费B站 Professor of Ocean Engineering and Oceanography Brennan Phillips and a multidisciplinary team of scientists will use cutting-edge technology to learn new information about fragile deep-sea organisms and possibly discover new species. The team will receive $2.2 million over three years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":102580,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25,127,1905],"class_list":["post-102579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-college-of-engineering","tag-graduate-school-of-oceanography","tag-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102579"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102585,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102579\/revisions\/102585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}