Sars International Centre for Marine Molecular Biology

The Michael Sars Centre is a research establishment located at Bergen in Norway. It is an international community of scientists using advanced technologies to study the unique molecular and cellular biology of marine organisms.

History
Michael Sar Centre was established in April 1997. It is located at the Bergen High Technology Centre and is part of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Bergen. It was named after Norwegian father and son marine biologists, Michael Sars (1805–1869) and Georg Ossian Sars (1837–1927).

Organisation
Research at the Centre is undertaken by six groups, each working for a period of six years which can be extended at the discretion of an international advisory committee. Each group is led by a group leader, employed for the period of the project, and undertakes basic research into the "comparative molecular biology of marine animals". The Sars Centre is an EMBL partner European Molecular Biology Laboratory with which it exchanges scientific information about areas of common interest. As one of the first EMBL partners, the Michael Sars Centre is rooted in the Bergen academic community and serves as a national strategical asset for Norwegian marine life sciences.

Facilities
The Centre is well equipped for microscopy and imaging and owns a confocal microscope. It also makes use of facilities provided by the University of Bergen, including its marine station at Espegrend. Major model species include the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis, the ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi, the tunicates Oikopleura and Ciona and the annelid worms Malacoceros fuliginosus and Dimorphilus gyrociliatus.

Research
Research at the Centre involves using marine animals as model organisms to study development using molecular techniques, most often in an evolutionary context, including analysis of the genomes of the species studied. Species studied include the tunicates Oikopleura dioica and Ciona intestinalis, the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis and various protostomes particularly spiralians.