Acquisition of a Variable-Pressure SEM: New Avenues in Collaborative Biologic, Paleontologic, and Museum Collection Research and Conservation for New York's Capital Region

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A consortium of seven principal researchers and nine auxiliary users from theNew York Capital Region are funded for a variable-pressure, field emission scanning electron microscope (VP-FESEM) equipped with an Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis System. Support includes several ancillary instruments including a critical point drier, a freeze drier, and a high-resolution chrome sputtering device. Major research areas to be addressed include: (i)cell biological and molecular approaches addressing the origins of the skeleton; (ii) microfossil taxonomy of the oldest skeletalized animals and the Cambrian evolutionary radiation; (iii) nanotechnology in the neurosciences, (iv) the role of mitochondria in cell death, (v) the evolution of prehistoric agriculture in the northeastern United States; and (vi) post-glacial fish dispersal and assemblage/community structure.This instrument will create new ties between paleontologists, biologists,and museum curators in a research web ranging back through 500 million years ofbiologic evolution up to the Native American development of agriculture. A novel aspect of the proposed instrument is the merging of research disciplines in two large but distinct New York State government agencies: The Wadsworth Center, the flagship research institution of the New York State Department of Health, and the New York State Museum, a major branch of the New York State Education Department. As such, the instrument will serve to link basic researchers in the biosciences and paleontology with those engaged in museum collection research, conservation, and dissemination of collection data. Both agencies have major education mandates to the citizenry of New York State, and all of the investigators in this proposal have time-tested local, regional, and national outreach commitments.