WOODS HOLE, Mass. – Like humans struggling to get through the COVID-19 pandemic, bacterial cells need social distancing to thwart viruses. But in some situations, such as inside elevators or within the candy-colored bacterial structures known as “pink berries,” staying apart just isn’t feasible. Looking like spilled Nerds or Pop Rocks, the communal, multicellular pink berries  litter the submerged surface of salt marshes in and around Woods Hole. New research conducted at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) uncovers evidence that a genetic mechanism may help the berry-building bacteria — and others like them — protect against disease. The study, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also has implications for understanding the evolution of single-celled organisms, like bacteria, into complex multicellular ones, including humans.  “It tells us about the challenges we faced back when we were little balls of cells,” says Lizzy Wilbanks, an MBL Whitman Fellow and a microbiologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “If you're forming multicellular structures, you've got to evolve some pretty fancy immune defenses in order to stay alive.”

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