 At a meeting, a visiting researcher from the University of Hawaii suggested she investigate the Hawaiian bobtail squid and its bioluminescent symbionts "V. fischeri" as an alternative.McFall-Ngai found that the squid worked great in the lab with 8-10 pairs of squid generating roughly 60,000 juveniles a year.To fully study this relationship, McFall-Ngai began collaborating with Edward (Ned) Ruby, a microbiologist who had written his dissertation on "V. fischeri".