NSF Awards Bigelow Laboratory $4,975,000 for Center for Ocean Biogeochemistry and Climate Change
On September 18, 2010, the National Science Foundation announced that the Laboratory received a $4,975,000 grant
toward construction of the Center for Ocean Biogeochemistry and Climate Change (COBCC) on the Laboratory’s new
Ocean Science and Education Campus. The funds are part of the federal economic stimulus program and will be
used to build research laboratories to investigate the role of plankton in the relationship between the world’s
oceans and global climate change. U.S. News and World Report featured the COBCC on its Science webpage on September 27.
Laboratory Breaks Ground for Bigelow Center for Blue Biotechnology on its new Ocean Science and Education Campus
September 7, 2010, on the road to the BCBB. Photo by Greg Bernard.
Over 200 people joined U.S. Senator Susan Collins on September 7, 2010 for an “authentic Maine” groundbreaking
for the Bigelow Center for Blue Biotechnology. This was the first step in creating a permanent home on the
Laboratory’s 64-acre oceanfront property in East Boothbay. WCSH6 News covered the event from the siteÊand
the story was featured in the Portland Press Herald. A $4.45 million grant from the Maine Technology Asset
Fund catalyzed plans for the new building, which will provide 25,600 GSF of much-needed new laboratory space
for the Provasoli-Guillard National Center for the Culture of Marine Phytoplankton, the Single Cell Genomics
Center, the J. J. MacIsaac Aquatic Cytometry Center, and the Bioreactor Laboratory, as well as shared imaging
facilities and offices.
Single Cell Genomics Workshop Brings International Scientists to Boothbay Harbor SCG 2010 Workshop Participants. Photo by Greg Bernard.
The Laboratory’s Single Cell Genomics Center (SCGC) has just concluded a week-long international workshop on
“Redefining Microbial Genomics: The Power of Sequencing Individual Cells” held from September 19–24, 2010 at
the Spruce Point Inn in Boothbay Harbor. More than seventy people, including scientists from France, Denmark,
Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Finland, India, Saudi Arabia, the People’s Republic of China, Australia,
and New Zealand attended. Sessions included discussion of the latest advances in gene sequencing technologies
and the use of single cell genomics in understanding ecosystems, evolution, and microbial diversity. The
workshop was sponsored by Bigelow Laboratory, the National Science Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore
Foundation, The U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. More
information is available on the Single Cell Genomics Center webpage.
Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences ...exploring the world’s oceans, from microbes to global ecosystems
Announcements
O-Buoy Receives New NSF Grant
Dr. Paty Matrai has received a $ 1,075,619 award from the
National Science Foundation for "Collaborative Research: ÊThe O-Buoy Network of
Chemical Sensors in the Arctic Ocean" Collaborating institutions include the U.S.
Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL), Monterey Bay
Research Institute, Purdue University, and University of Alaska Fairbanks.
The collaborators build and deploy an Arctic Ocean network of 11 rugged and
autonomous buoys capable of observing atmospheric O3, BrO, and CO2 and oceanic
pCO2 for a period of up to 5 years (each O-Buoy will be operational for up to
2 years). The original O-Buoy project funded by NSF included design and testing
of the O-Buoy (see enews, May 13, 2010).
Recent Publications
Iron-Oxidizing Bacteria: An Environmental and Genomic Perspective David Emerson, Emily J. Fleming, and Joyce M. McBeth Annu. Rev. Microbiol. 2010. 64:561Ð83
Quantitative 3D elemental microtomography of Cyclotella meneghiniana at 400-nm resolution Martin D. de Jongea, Christian Holznerb, Stephen B. Bainesc, Benjamin S. Twining,
Konstantin Ignatyeve, Julia Diazf, Daryl L. Howard, Daniel Legninie, Antonino Micelie, Ian McNultye,
Chris J. Jacobsenb, and Stefan Vogte Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of AmericaPNAS September 7, 2010 vol. 107 no. 3615676-15680
Complex phylogeographic patterns in the freshwater alga Synura provide new insights into ubiquity vs. endemism in microbial eukaryotes Sung Min Boo, Han Soon Kim, Woongghi Shin, Ga Hun Boo, Sung Mi Cho, Bok Yeon Jo,
Jee-Hwan Kim, Jin Hee Kim, Eun Chan Yang, Peter A. Siver, Alexander P. Wolfe, Debashish Bhattacharya,
Robert A. Andersen, and Hwan Su Yoon. Molecular Ecology (2010) 19, 4328Ð4338
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