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How cyanobacteria developed photosynthetic membranes over the course of evolution

Researchers at the University of Liège have analysed hundreds of cyanobacterial genomes to understand the origin of thylakoids, the internal membranes involved in photosynthesis.

University of Liège

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Ancestral cyanobacteria carried out photosynthesis at their plasma membrane. The emergence of thylakoids – internal membranes specialised in photosynthesis – is thought to have subsequently enabled more efficient photosynthesis. Later, primary endosymbiosis led to the emergence of chloroplasts, the compartments where photosynthesis takes place in photosynthetic eukaryotes, such as algae and plants.

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Credit: University of Liège / L.Hambücken

New study provides first  insights into how thylakoid membranes - the internal compartments where oxygen-producing photosynthesis takes place - emerged during evolution. By comparing the genomes of cyanobacteria with and without thylakoids, the researchers have identified proteins that may have contributed to their formation. 

A tree leaf can be pictured as a small town powered by solar energy. Each cell in this leaf contains a power station - the chloroplast - whose thylakoids act as solar panels. These specialised internal membranes (thylakoids) carry out the photosynthetic reactions that produce oxygen, in plants and algae as well as in cyanobacteria, whose chloroplasts are their distant descendants. The emergence of thylakoids is regarded as a significant milestone in the history of life. By improving the efficiency of oxygenic photosynthesis, these structures may have contributed to the Great Oxygenation Event, which occurred around 2.4 billion years ago - a period during which oxygen began to accumulate sustainably in the Earth’s atmosphere.

However, how these membranes first arose remains poorly understood. “The process is complex,” explains Louise Hambücken, a researcher at the Laboratory of Eukaryotic Phylogenomics at the University of Liège, “it involves both the formation of the membrane itself and the tightly coordinated assembly of the associated proteins . And we still know very little about how these mechanisms emerged in the earliest cyanobacteria.” The scarcity of fossils from this period further complicates our understanding of this part of our history.To tackle this, the ULiège team – which is studying the origin and evolution of photosynthesis in these basal cyanobacteria – has focused on a group of modern cyanobacteria, the Gloeobacterales, which are considered to be close to the ancestral state. “The Gloeobacterales lack thylakoids and carry out photosynthesis at the plasma membrane surrounding the cell,” the young researcher adds. This led the team at the University of Liège to conduct a large-scale comparative bioinformatics analysis. “By comparing a wide variety of cyanobacterial genomes, both with and without thylakoids, we identified proteins potentially involved in the formation of these membranes.” This is the first study to investigate the evolutionary processes underlying thylakoid formation through such an approach.

 

The comparison also focused on photosystem II, revealing which stages of its assembly were already present, absent or different in the Gloeobacterales. Photosystem II is a large complex of proteins and pigments embedded in the photosynthetic membrane, which is the thylakoid membranes in most cyanobacteria and the plasma membrane in Gloeobacterales. It is one of the two ‘photosystems’ (hence its name, Photosystem II) that carry out the light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis. Its distinctive feature is that it uses light energy to extract electrons from water. This reaction releases oxygen and protons, enabling photosynthetic organisms to convert the Sun’s energy into chemical energy. On an evolutionary scale, this process has contributed to the gradual accumulation of oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere.

“These findings are part of fundamental research and have no direct application at this stage,” concludes Dr Luc Cornet, a researcher at the Laboratory of Eukaryotic Phylogenomics (ULiège). “However, they provide an initial basis for gradually reconstructing the evolutionary history of thylakoids and for better understanding how oxygenic photosynthesis has been optimised over time.” In the longer term, a better understanding of how specialised biological membranes are organised and modified could also open up new avenues in biotechnology and synthetic biology, centred on energy conversion within the cell. The study sheds new light on how cyanobacteria gradually relocated their photosynthetic machinery from the cell membrane to dedicated internal structures that act as miniature solar power stations: the thylakoids.

 

Photosynthesis takes place in the thylakoid membranes, where several large protein complexes capture light and transfer electrons from photosystem II (PSII) to photosystem I (PSI). The oxidation of water by PSII releases oxygen and protons, whilst the transfer of electrons enables the production of NADPH (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate – a key coenzyme in cellular metabolism). The proton gradient generated across the membrane is used by ATP synthase to produce ATP. The panels above illustrate the organisation of thylakoids within the cell. The table shows, for each complex, the approximate number of subunits of which it is composed, as well as the number of assembly proteins – that is, the auxiliary factors necessary for their formation, maturation and correct insertion into the membrane.

Credit

University of Liège / L.Hambücken

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Journal

New Phytologist

DOI

10.1111/nph.71284 

Article Title

Exploring thylakoid emergence: evolution of membrane biogenesis and photosystem II assembly in early-diverging cyanobacteria

Article Publication Date

5-Jun-2026

 

From biopsy to biomarker: Hollings researchers detail how long patients wait for results

Medical University of South Carolina

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Pulmonologist Adam Fox, M.D., has been investigating barriers to efficiently performing biomarker tests in lung cancer patients. 

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Credit: MUSC Hollings Cancer Center

Even as biomarker testing has become increasingly important to selecting the right lung cancer treatment, the time it takes to order these tests hasn’t improved.

Overall, the time from biopsy to biomarker results is about twice as long as most doctors think it is. And that wait can affect whether patients get started on the correct first-line treatment to match their cancer, such as a targeted therapy or immunotherapy. A mismatched therapy might not work or could lead to complications, said lung cancer pulmonologist Adam Fox, M.D., who led the research. The work was supported, in part, by the American Cancer Society National Lung Cancer Roundtable. The results were published in JCO Oncology Practice.

Fox, who treats patients and conducts research at MUSC Hollings Cancer Center, worked with fellow Hollings pulmonologist Gerard Silvestri, M.D., and a biomarker testing company to assess testing turnaround times for multiple types of solid tumors between 2018 and 2024. Much of their focus was on non-small cell lung cancer, because selecting the correct treatment has increasingly become so important in lung cancer care.

“In lung cancer, in an ideal world, you would prefer to have this testing before any treatment is given to most patients – surgery, chemo, any systemic therapy, radiation – you'd really prefer to have this as soon as possible,” Fox said. “You want to get it right the first time. That’s what I tell patients. You want to get the right treatment delivered first but still as efficiently as possible.”

The research team looked at the overall turnaround time and then broke the process down into segments:

• How long it takes to order testing after a biopsy.
• How long it takes to package and ship the sample to the testing company.
• How long it takes for the testing company to do the testing and report the results.

Overall time improved from 36 days to 27 days between 2018 and 2024 – but that improvement was almost entirely the result of improvements in testing time at the lab.

The first step – the time that it took to order the test – actually got a little worse: one more day than at the beginning of the study.

That is also the step that showed the most variability across sites. In 2024, for example, the median turnaround for this first step was eight days for the fastest 20% of sites. But for the slowest 20%, the median turnaround time was 23 days – just to order the test. And that, Fox emphasized, was the median. Some sites took as long as 30 days to order testing.

Most doctors aren’t aware of the overall turnaround time, probably because they’re seeing only part of the process.

“A couple of years ago, we asked 400 pulmonologists, ‘How long does each of these steps take, from biopsy to referral to biomarker testing?’ And they estimated two weeks,” Fox said. “Maybe some of them are correct, and it takes about two weeks. But they would have to be in the highest-performing sites, because our median was more like four weeks. I think this data, of four weeks on average, would shock a lot of people.”

Biomarkers are specific biological indicators that give doctors information about a tumor. In lung cancer, they can tell doctors whether a specific drug treatment is likely to work – or not. In recent years, many targeted therapies have been developed that target specific genetic mutations. But these new drugs only work for people with those genetic mutations. On the other hand, immunotherapies that are otherwise widely used in lung cancer might not work for people with some genetic mutations.

It’s important to match the treatment to the individual cancer – but when people are facing a cancer diagnosis and a long wait for biomarker results, both doctors and patients might feel pressure to get some kind of treatment started, even if it later turns out to be a suboptimal treatment.

And it’s not just a matter of switching to the proper treatment once biomarker results are in.

“For instance, switching from immunotherapy to a targeted therapy has an increased risk of reactions like pneumonitis,” Fox said. Pneumonitis is a swelling and irritation of the lungs that can cause permanent problems like shortness of breath.

There’s also the chance that the initial treatment, which could have toxic side effects, could weaken the patient. Or, the patient could decide that the side effects are too much, and they don’t want to do any treatment, even if the doctor assures them that an alternative has fewer side effects. There’s also a chance that a treatment could make the patient ineligible for clinical trials later on.

Ordering biomarker testing immediately after a biopsy seems like the easy and obvious solution, but there are many historical and logistical factors that complicate the process, Fox said.

MUSC has implemented “reflex testing.” Pathologists reflexively initiate testing after they find lung cancer cells in a sample. But that’s not necessarily possible in every system.

He thinks there are a few systemic barriers that could be preventing reflex testing or similar programs.

Pathologists don't necessarily have the expertise to know which tests to order, he explained, especially as molecular testing continues to evolve. MUSC has an in-house lab, which makes it easier to set up a process, but most hospitals don’t.

Some doctors may still remember when insurance companies didn’t cover biomarker testing, and patients ended up with bills for thousands of dollars.

And a 14-day rule for inpatient testing for Medicare patients may inadvertently be prolonging the testing process. Some patients might be admitted to the hospital for pneumonia or other illnesses and then diagnosed with lung cancer while hospitalized. Biomarker testing is still needed for these patients to inform their outpatient cancer treatment once they’re referred to an oncologist, Fox said. But if the biomarker testing is ordered during that window, complex reimbursement rules may leave hospitals responsible for the costs rather than being reimbursed at the outpatient rate.

That’s a complicated, little-discussed issue that can have extensive ripple effects. It’s unclear how Medicare and private insurance reimbursement policies affect turnaround times on a national scale, but they certainly play a role, Fox noted.

Finally, there’s no clear directive stating who should order biomarker testing.

“If there’s no consensus or plan, then it might be kind of willy-nilly,” Fox said. “Whoever happens to order it, orders it, and often that is going to be the oncologist, the last person in line.”

Although the paper focuses on lung cancer, it also includes data on turnaround times for multiple types of solid tumors. Fox noted that biomarker testing might not be as critical for some other cancer types because it doesn’t determine the initial treatment that a patient receives. But it will probably continue to gain importance.

The turnaround time for shipping and lab testing was similar among the different cancer types – the big variation was in the time to order the test. While there was a median of 14 days in 2024 to order testing for non-small cell lung cancer, the median was 22 days for ovarian cancer and 27 days for other types of gynecologic cancer.

Fox said the big takeaway from this paper is that specialties should work together to order these tests as quickly as is efficiently possible.

“Time is of the essence, and this is a component of time,” he said. “And my argument is if it just takes a little bit of logistical work for many places to find a mechanism to order this weeks earlier, then we should put in the effort.”
 

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Journal

JCO Oncology Practice

DOI

10.1200/OP-25-01191 

Article Title

Turnaround Time of Comprehensive Genomic Profiling in Lung Cancer and Other Solid Tumors

Article Publication Date

18-Jun-2026

COI Statement

Adam H. Fox Employment: Medical University of South Carolina Stock and Other Ownership Interests: Merck Honoraria: Lilly, Olympus Consulting or Advisory Role: AstraZeneca Research Funding: Lilly (Inst) Uncompensated Relationships: Foundation Medicine Rachel B. Keller-Evans Employment: Foundation Medicine Stock and Other Ownership Interests: Roche Patents, Royalties, Other Intellectual Property: I am a co-inventor on an FMI-owned patent submission related to research and development activities (Inst) Richard S.P. Huang Employment: Roche/Foundation Medicine Stock and Other Ownership Interests: Roche Patents, Royalties, Other Intellectual Property: Patent on IHC, provisional patent on biomarkers and biomarker methodology Gerard A. Silvestri Honoraria: AstraZeneca Consulting or Advisory Role: Olympus Medical Systems, Biodesix, AstraZeneca/Daiichi Sankyo, Amgen Research Funding: Olympus, biodesix, Seer, Amgen No other potential conflicts of interest were reported.

 

Raman microscopy unmixed: A comprehensive guide to the molecular imaging technology reshaping biology

Bioengineers at the University of California San Diego bridge the gap between spectroscopy developers and biologists through a systematic guide explaining modern Raman imaging technologies, probes, and applications

Chinese Society for Optical Engineering

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The University of California San Diego researchers have published a comprehensive review on Raman microscopy and its applications in the life sciences, aiming to bridge a long-standing communication gap between physicists who develop the instrumentation and the biologists who stand to benefit most from it.

Raman microscopy generates chemical images of biological samples by using the interaction between light and molecular vibrations, without requiring stains, dyes, or labels. Different chemical bonds in proteins, lipids, DNA, and metabolites scatter light at characteristic frequencies, creating molecular fingerprints that reveal cellular composition and how chemical contents change in real time.

The review was published in Photonix Life and authored by Erick Alvarado, Zhi Li, Yajuan Li, and corresponding author Lingyan Shi from the Shu Chien-Gene Lay Department of Bioengineering at the University of California San Diego.

"Over the past decade, Raman microscopy has advanced tremendously, but there is still a clear disconnect between what the technology can currently do and what biologists know is available," said Shi, a tenured associate professor of bioengineering at UC San Diego and a pioneer of the DO-SRS and SuMMIT-SRS metabolic imaging platforms. "We wrote this review to provide the kind of resource we wish we had when we first started working in this interdisciplinary field."

"Looking ahead, Raman microscopy is at a critical inflection point as it moves from the lab toward clinical and industrial translation," Shi added. "With the convergence of quantum-enhanced imaging, AI-assisted diagnosis, and miniaturized probe technologies, this label-free chemical imaging approach will truly become an everyday tool for biologists and clinicians, advancing precision medicine into a new era of single-molecule, real-time, and multidimensional analysis."

Structured framework for comparing technologies

One notable strength of the review is its systematic comparison of technical advances along four performance axes: signal sensitivity, imaging speed, volumetric (3D) imaging capability, and spatial resolution. This structured framework is applied consistently across both spontaneous and coherent Raman modalities, enabling readers to directly assess which technologies and trade-offs are most relevant to their specific experimental needs.

From cells to the clinic

The review highlights how Raman microscopy is being applied across biological scales. Recent examples featured in the article include tracking metabolic changes during aging and neurodegenerative disease using heavy water as a tracer; detecting amyloid plaques in Alzheimer's disease brain tissue without any labels; achieving diagnostic-quality virtual tissue staining with machine learning in just 3 minutes, compared with more than 36 hours using conventional preparation methods; and imaging drug penetration in tissue in real time.

Pushing fundamental limits

The article documents several major technical milestones, including tip-enhanced methods that have pushed spatial resolution to 2.5 nanometers—sufficient to distinguish individual protein complexes on cell membranes. In terms of sensitivity, quantum-enhanced approaches using squeezed light have surpassed the classical noise limit, boosting signal detection by more than 50% while enabling faster live-cell imaging. Computational methods, including the A-PoD super-resolution algorithm developed in the Shi laboratory, have achieved sub-59-nanometer resolution through software-based post-processing.

Emerging frontiers

Looking ahead, the review points to several transformative directions: miniature fiber-optic Raman probes that have achieved more than 98% accuracy for cancer diagnosis during endoscopy; quantum coherent effects that can selectively amplify specific molecular signals; ultrafast time-resolved Raman spectroscopy for tracking molecular dynamics on the femtosecond timescale; and multimodal platforms that combine Raman imaging with mass spectrometry and clinical MRI for comprehensive tissue characterization.

"The field is at a turning point," said Alvarado, a PhD student in the Shi laboratory and first author of the review. "The technology is now mature enough to address real biological and clinical questions, but realizing that potential requires physicists and biologists to speak the same language. That is exactly what we are trying to build with this review."

See the article:

Raman microscopy unmixed: Technical advances, bio-orthogonal tags, and applications in life sciences

https://doi.org/10.3724/PXLIFE.2025-0016

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DOI

10.3724/PXLIFE.2025-0016 

Method of Research

Literature review

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Raman microscopy unmixed: Technical advances, bio-orthogonal tags, and applications in life sciences

The protein microcrystallography beamline (BL18U1) at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility

BL18U1 supports high-quality diffraction data collection and structure determination for diverse crystallographic samples at SSRF

Nuclear Science and Techniques

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This figure shows the complete experimental endstation of BL18U1, including the MD2 microdiffractometer, Pilatus 3 6M detector, automated sample changer, and cryogenic cooling system. Together, these key instruments transform the beamline’s optical performance into a practical experimental platform for high-precision crystal positioning, high-throughput sample handling, and rapid diffraction data acquisition.

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Credit: Wen-Ming Qin

An advanced platform for structural biology

The BL18U1 microcrystallography beamline at SSRF is one of the five beamlines operated by the National Facility for Protein Science in Shanghai and the first microcrystallography beamline at a third-generation synchrotron light source in China. Designed for microcrystals and other challenging samples, BL18U1 has become an important platform for structural biology and crystallographic research.

High-quality beam, flexible energy, integrated instrumentation

BL18U1 combines advanced optical design with stable microbeam performance. At the sample position, it delivers a beam of about 9.8 μm horizontally and 4.6 μm vertically, providing suitable conditions for diffraction studies of protein microcrystals, membrane protein crystals, small-molecule crystals, and other difficult samples. With a tunable energy range of 5–18 keV, the beamline can meet different experimental needs and support absorption-edge measurements as well as anomalous diffraction experiments.

The experimental station is equipped with an MD2 microdiffractometer, a Pilatus 3 6M detector, a Rigaku ACTOR robotic sample changer, and a cryogenic cooling system. Together with the MXCuBE3 control system, these components enable precise sample alignment, efficient automated operation, rapid data acquisition, and streamlined data processing.

From routine diffraction to sulfur-SAD phasing

The study shows that BL18U1 can routinely provide high-quality diffraction data. In lysozyme experiments, the beamline achieved diffraction data to 1.28 Å resolution with excellent processing statistics. The beamline also demonstrated long-wavelength anomalous diffraction capability at 2.02 Å, enhanced anomalous signals from endogenous sulfur atoms enabled sulfur-SAD phasing, reliable electron density map calculation, and atomic model building.

Strong support for high-quality structure determination

By the end of 2024, data collected at BL18U1 had contributed to 1,687 macromolecular structures deposited in the Protein Data Bank, with most structures in the 1.5–2.5 Å high-resolution range. These results show that BL18U1 has consistently supported the determination of numerous high-quality crystal structures and plays an important role in structural biology and structure-based research at SSRF.

The complete study is via by DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41365-026-01991-6

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Journal

Nuclear Science and Techniques

DOI

10.1007/s41365-026-01991-6 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

The protein microcrystallography beamline (BL18U1) at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility

Article Publication Date

18-Jun-2026

 

This figure highlights the integrated MXCuBE3 control framework implemented at BL18U1. Through the coordinated control of the diffractometer, sample changer, detector, and database system, the beamline has achieved a highly automated workflow that unifies experiment control, data display, storage, and processing, greatly improving user efficiency and operational intelligence

 

This figure demonstrates BL18U1’s capability for routine high-quality diffraction data collection and automated processing. The beamline delivered a dataset at 1.28 Å resolution with an Rmerge of only 0.065, clearly showing that BL18U1 can reliably support high-resolution macromolecular structure determination.

 

This figure highlights the obvious anomalous signal obtained at 2.02 Å, especially from sulfur atoms. The successful recovery of reliable electron density maps and atomic models demonstrates that BL18U1 has progressed beyond routine crystallography and is capable of supporting demanding long-wavelength native-SAD phasing experiments.

 

This figure summarizes the resolution distribution of 1,687 PDB structures supported by BL18U1 as of the end of 2024. The results show that most structures fall within the high-resolution range of 1.5–2.5 Å, highlighting BL18U1’s long-term and stable capability to produce high-quality structural data, as well as its important supporting role in structural biology and structure-based drug discovery.

Credit

Wen-Ming Qin

Expedition to the origins of a giant beneath the sea

SONNE Cruise SO320/2 investigates the age and formation of Hess Rise

Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR)

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The study area lies far from any coastline. Deep beneath the waters of the North Pacific, between Japan and North America, rises a vast volcanic plateau known as Hess Rise. Extending for more than 1,000 kilometres, it is among the largest oceanic plateaus on Earth. Yet despite its immense size, remarkably little is known about it. Even its origin, around 100 million years ago, remains unresolved.

Named after Harry Hammond Hess of Princeton University, a pioneer of marine geophysics and geomorphology who first identified the feature while serving aboard the USS CAPE JOHNSON during surveys in 1942-1943, Hess Rise continues to pose fundamental geological questions. Did it form along the path of a migrating triple junction, where three tectonic plates met? Did it develop directly at an ancient spreading centre where new oceanic crust was created? Or was it produced independently of plate boundaries by a mantle plume – an upwelling of hot material from deep within the Earth's mantle?

The expedition “Hess Evolution” aims to find answers. The project aboard the research vessel SONNE is divided into two legs. During the first leg, led by Dr Anke Dannowski, scientists spent four and a half weeks investigating geophysical questions such as the deep structure of the plateau. Last weekend, the scientific party changed over in Honolulu and the geologists took over.

Chief scientist Dr Jörg Geldmacher, a geochemist at GEOMAR, has brought along his preferred scientific tool: the chain bag dredge. This device enables the efficient recovery of rock samples from great depths. “Every sample recovered from the seafloor is a piece of the puzzle. Its age and chemical composition allow us to reconstruct how and under what conditions the rock formed,” says Geldmacher.

Rock Samples from Water Depths of up to 6,000 Metres

During the expedition, rocks will be collected from the slopes and ridges of the plateau at around 55 stations, in some cases from water depths of up to 6,000 metres. Once back on shore, the samples will be analysed using geochemical and isotopic methods. Radiometric dating techniques will allow the scientists to determine when individual parts of the plateau formed. A key question is whether the rocks reveal systematic age patterns across the plateau or whether they were formed at roughly the same time.

“The age distribution across the plateau is a critical test of the competing formation models,” says Geldmacher. “It will tell us whether volcanism migrated along a tectonic structure or whether large parts of the plateau formed within a relatively short period of geological time.”

Searching for a Late Volcanic Phase

Another focus of the expedition is a series of smaller volcanic cones that sit on top of the plateau. These may provide evidence of a later phase of volcanism that occurred long after the main plateau had formed.

Such late-stage volcanic activity has also been documented on other oceanic plateaus, but its cause remains poorly understood. The new samples will reveal whether these volcanic cones are younger than the main plateau and whether they were fed by different magma sources.

“Hess Rise is one of the last major oceanic plateaus whose formation history remains largely unknown,” says Geldmacher. “With the samples collected during this expedition, we hope to identify the processes that created one of the largest volcanic complexes on our planet more than 100 million years ago.”

“In Earth’s history, volcanic events of this magnitude were often accompanied by the release of enormous quantities of volcanic gases, particularly carbon dioxide, over geologically short timescales. These episodes frequently triggered major global climate changes and mass extinctions. Understanding these processes therefore also provides an important perspective on the modern climate crisis.”

The answer is of fundamental importance for understanding our planet. Oceanic plateaus are among the largest volcanic structures on Earth, and Hess Rise may hold the key to understanding how vast volumes of magma can reach the surface in a relatively short geological period and how the tectonic evolution of the Pacific Basin unfolded.

 

Expedition at a Glance

Name: SONNE Expedition SO320/2 “Hess Evolution”

Chief Scientist: Jörg Geldmacher

Dates: 19 June – 3 August 2026

Start: Honolulu

End: Vancouver

Study Area: Northwestern Pacific, Hess Rise