Biologists Who Lost Funding Turned Motel Room into Lab, Found Two New Species

A team led by Julia Van Etten, whose federal funding was frozen, set up a makeshift lab in an $80-a-night motel room and discovered two new species of the single-celled microbe Paulinella. Only six species are now known; the microbes offer a rare snapshot of a cell merging with a photosynthetic bacterium, an event that occurred in Paulinella about 100 million years ago.

• The discovery was published in the Journal of Phycology; only six Paulinella species are known
• Van Etten lost access to a $60,000 NSF fellowship after the 2025 funding freeze
• The team worked in an $80-per-night motel room; DNA sequencing was done in South Korea
• Paulinella's merger with a photosynthetic bacterium happened about 100 million years ago