Now Cannery Row bustles with visitors drawn to shops, restaurants and the innovative Monterey Bay Aquarium. Powers, the Harold A. Miller Professor of Marine Biology, and his predecessor, the late Colin Pittendrigh, have presided over a 20-year program of building and renovation at the marine station, coupled with recruitment of a faculty of highly respected scientists. The renovations include advanced laboratories equipped for studies ranging from molecular and cell biology to simulated wave and wind action. For research, and for an endless source of projects for students, they take advantage of their unique location, with several complex ecosystems right outside their laboratory windows. Faculty and students also collaborate with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and a half-dozen other marine research facilities that have joined Hopkins in making this region a major center of scientific activity.
Powers studies the evolutionary strategies that organisms use to adapt to their environments.
Barbara Block, co-director of the Tuna Research and Conservation Center, studies the physiology of tuna and other nomadic ocean fishes. Mark Denny examines the biomechanics of animals and plants that manage to survive on wave-swept shores. David Epel researches fertilization and how marine organisms repel pollutants. William Gilly and his colleague Stuart Thompson are neurobiologists. Paul Levine uses the symbiotic and parasitic relationships between animals and bacteria to look for the basic mechanisms of disease.