SGER: A multi-user, combined thermal cycler and microfluorimeter for studies of marine organisms

这项奖励将使人们能够购买一种结合了快速热循环仪和显微荧光分光光度计的仪器。这项技术允许实时地对PCR反应进行量化，从而可以利用荧光仪的灵敏度和精确度将典型的PCR定性结果转换为定量结果。在海洋生物研究中，定量聚合酶链式反应正在成为一种潜在的关键技术，但仍然是“危险的”技术。仪器成本的障碍也限制了它作为海洋科学工具的发展。研究人员将首先使用该仪器检测海洋环境中的特定微生物(自由生活的光自养生物、异养生物、共生体和病原体)，目的是对微生物生物多样性的控制机制有一个基本的了解。检测各种微生物活动的基因，如有毒的金属代谢或营养胁迫反应，是第二个潜在的用途。最后，对桡足类和海胆等真核海洋生物的种群遗传学研究将受益于拟议仪器的使用。加州大学圣地亚哥分校斯克里普斯海洋学研究所海洋生物学研究部的三个实验室将作为该仪器的主要用户(Palenik、Azam和Burton)开始使用，但该仪器的使用可能会扩展到其他几个实验室。在所有情况下，该仪器在产生成果方面都将是有价值的，这些成果将开辟海洋科学的新研究方向，并为未来的国家科学基金会提案提供初步结果。

This award will enable the purchase of an instrument that combines a rapid thermocycler with a microspectrofluorimeter. This technology allows the quantification of a PCR reaction as it occurs in real time and thus can convert the qualitative results typical of PCR into quantitative ones using the sensitivity and precision of the fluorimeter. Quantitative PCR is emerging as a potentially crucial, but still "risky" technique in the study of marine organisms. The barrier of instrumentation cost has also limited its development as a tool in marine sciences. The researchers will initially use the instrument in the detection of specific microorganisms (free-living photoautotrophs, heterotrophs, symbionts, and pathogens) in the marine environment, with the goal of developing a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms controlling microbial biodiversity. The detection of the genes for various microbial activities such as toxic metal metabolism or nutrient stress responses is a second potential use. Lastly, population genetic studies of eukaryotic marine organisms such as copepods and sea urchins will benefit from the utilization of the proposed instrument. Three laboratories in the Marine Biology Research Division of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, will begin as major users of the instrument (Palenik, Azam and Burton), but use of the instrument will likely extend to several other labs. In all cases the instrument will be valuable in generating results that will open new research directions in marine sciences and provide preliminary results for future NSF proposals.