Scientists Discover the "Vitamin B12 Claw"

In recently published work, stemming from her Ph.D. research as a graduate student in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program, Erin Bertrand and co-authors report a key cog in the biochemical machinery that allows marine algae at the base of the oceanic food chain to thrive. They have discovered a previously unknown protein in algae that grabs vitamin B12, an essential but scarce nutrient, out of seawater. Erin is among PAOC's 6 graduating doctoral students. 

Read more in Oceanus

Reference:

Erin M. Bertrand, et al. (2012), Influence of cobalamin scarcity on diatom molecular physiology and identification of a cobalamin acquisition protein , published online before print, PNAS My 31, 2012, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1201731109