Michael Lomas, director of Bigelow Laboratory's National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota, closes a vat containing samples stored in liquid nitrogen at a temperature of minus 196 degrees Celsius.

Michael Lomas, director of Bigelow Laboratory’s National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota, stands in a walk-in incubator where tropical and subtropical water samples containing algae strains are kept.

Bigelow Laboratory's National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota has gotten a grant to build a $300,000 greenhouse.

MIchael Lomas, director of Bigelow Laboratory's National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota, shows the center’s current 500-liter commercial-sized vats for algae strains.

MIke Preston, a research associate, records data while studying cell count in culture samples with a microscope.

Julie Sexton, a head curator at Bigelow Laboratory's National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota for 27 years, performs cultural maintenance.

Test tubes containing subtropical strains of algae are stored in an incubator at Bigelow Laboratory's National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota.

Formulas and notes are sketched on a glass wall of a scientist's office at Bigelow Laboratory's National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota.