Research aboard Falkor Helps Discover Many Deep-Sea Microbes Invisible to Mammalian Immune System

In 2017, researchers spent nearly three weeks aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor in the central Pacific Ocean. They used a remote-operated, submersible robot to collect water, coral, sponge, sea star, and sediment samples from different ocean depths, then tried a variety of conditions to grow bacteria found in those samples. They ended up with 117 culturable bacterial species that they brought back to Boston.

This research continues today.