FSML: Enabling the next generation of cell analysis at Horn Point Laboratory

University Of Maryland Center For Environmental Sciences, Cambridge MD

Investigators

Abstract

The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences is awarded a grant to establish a cell imaging and analysis center at the Horn Point Laboratory (http://www.umces.edu/hpl) to support research and training on the ecology and physiology of phytoplankton and bacterioplankton. Visualizing and counting microorganisms are fundamental to microbial ecology research and discovery. HPL will update and expand its capacity to count and visualize microbial cells to support and enhance existing molecular biology and microbial ecology facilities. Funds will be used to acquire a benchtop high-throughput flow cytometer, an inverted light microscope, and an epifluorescent microscope with a modern imaging system. This equipment will build the capacity for high-throughput cultivation experiments and single-cell substrate uptake analysis using microautoradiography and allow HPL to offer an intensive winter-term course on phytoplankton physiology for graduate and advanced undergraduate students from around the world. Beautiful images of cells are some of the most important tools microbial ecologists have to communicate and disseminate their research and engage the general public. The cell analysis center will become an integral part of graduate education at HPL, where it will be available to the entire Chesapeake Bay and Mid-Atlantic Bight research community. Summer undergraduate students will use the equipment as part of their research projects, as will students enrolled in a winter term short course on phytoplankton physiology and ecology, allowing HPL to train the next generation of microbial ecologists in phytoplankton physiology and identification. Cell staining and counting protocols will be made available via a newly constructed website for the cell analysis center, ensuring broad dissemination of our findings.