An Advanced Mobile Laboratory to enable field-based microbial ecology and cell biology across scales
Microbial biodiversity is central to ecosystem function, yet mechanistic insights into the cell biology of environmental organisms remain limited. The underlying challenges are twofold: most microbes remain uncultivable, and a persistent gap exists between field sampling and laboratory analyses. Here, we introduce the Advanced Mobile Laboratory (AML), a field-deployable platform that integrates confocal microscopy, image-enabled cell sorting, and cryo-preparation for expansion and electron microscopy. This setup enables immediate, standardized processing and analysis of environmental communities directly at the sampling site. We demonstrate its capability using marine eukaryotic plankton, showing how the AML enables multiscale investigations, from live imaging of natural communities to enabling ultrastructural and single-cell omics analyses, while minimizing sample degradation and enabling on-site experimentation. By bringing high-end sample preparation and analytical capacity into the field, the AML enables studying life in its natural context to mechanistically understand life's diversity in the environment.
Authors
- Angelika Svetlove
- Soraya M. Zwahlen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2130-3820)
- Serena Flori (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3407-2785)
- Felix Mikus (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5065-4710)
- Fanny Chevalier (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5585-7971)
- Marie R. Jacobovitz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9246-2314)
- Marine H. Laporte (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7856-6763)
- Marine Olivetta (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9451-0663)
- Eliott Flaum (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8737-7967)
- Higor Vinícius Dias Rosa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5743-4745)
- Gaëlle Toullec (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-1687-8646)
- Daniel P. Yee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2085-5538)
- Anna M. Steyer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4814-7517)
- Karel Mocaer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9706-6457)
- Hiral Shah
- Yannick Schwab (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8027-1836)
- Manon Demulder (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6015-850X)
- Caroline Juéry (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8073-5629)
- Charlotte M. Brannon (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4390-2832)
- Benoît Gallet (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8758-7681)
- Chandni Bhickta (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5879-2544)
- Annemarie Perez-Boerema
- Paulina Cherek
- Clémence Saint-Donat
- Kevin Moog (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-9731-5991)
- Thomas Beavis
- Laurine Planat (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-4425-7590)
- Sophie Baars
- Niko Leisch
- Gautam Dey
- Laia Burgues-Palau
- Christopher Randolph Rhodes
- Ines Romero-Brey
- Michael Bonadonna
- Manu Prakash
- Euan William Pyle
- Tina Wiegand
Institutions
- Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (FR)
- University of Geneva (CH)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Inserm (FR)
- University of Basel (CH)
- Heidelberg University (DE)
- Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (FR)
- CEA Grenoble (FR)
- Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (FR)
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory (DE)
- Institut de Biologie Structurale (FR)
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory (DE)
- Université Grenoble Alpes (FR)
- Stanford University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
- Published
- 2026-02-23
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.02.23.707475
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Micro and Nano Robotics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 26.95
Funders
- Ocean Foundation
- Universität Basel
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory
- Fondation Tara Océan
- Tallinna Tehnikaülikool
- Klaus Tschira Stiftung
- Boehringer Ingelheim Stiftung
- Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn
- Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental
- Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron