Revitalizing Facilities for Research on Life in Extreme Environments

Portland State University, Portland OR

Investigators

Abstract

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This award provides funds to convert 10,745 square feet in Portland State University's (PSU) Science Building 2 (SB2) into a Center for Life in Extreme Environments (CLEE). The renovations of Science Building 2 (SB2) at PSU will enable a core group of CLEE researchers to conduct research on the ecological and physiological effects of extremes in temperature and pH and extremes in nutrient, water and oxygen availability that spans all domains of life. Additionally, the space for the animal care facility for aquatic organisms will be doubled to facilitate greater temperature control and range for rearing fish from thermally extreme environments. The plan will provide central laboratory support space, including flexible equipment rooms, walk-in environmental control rooms and rooms dedicated to microscopy, cell culture, growing thermophiles and clean-room research. The linear equipment room will house autoclaves, glass wash facilities, and shared equipment and PSU's thermophile and Oregon's Collection of Methanogens (OCM) culture collections. In addition, the space will permit relocation of the microarray facility in this area. By substantially improving the quality of research space available to CLEE faculty, PSU will continue to lead international efforts to take an integrative approach to investigating life in extreme environments across all three domains of life. The improvements in the research facility will permit research involving a more holistic understanding of the potential human impacts on, and interactions with, species from environmentally sensitive habitats. The doubling of the Aquatic facility with the capacity to rear coldadapted fishes will place PSU as key center for such research. The consolidation of high temperature, high biomass growth facilities will enhance biochemical, molecular and microbial studies of thermostable molecules, thermophiles and their viruses. The renovations will also broadly impact education at PSU. The University has a long history of success in attracting and matriculating non-traditional and older students in an urban setting and it will help expand undergraduate and graduate research programs and will stimulate interdisciplinary research projects between Chemistry, Environmental Science, Biology and Geology and other institutions in the region.