Center for Subtropical and Tropical Oceans and Human Health Research in the Marine Sciences

在过去的十年中，越来越多的人认识到海洋和海陆界面是能够深刻影响人类健康的生物和化学物质的来源。例如，在世界各地的沿海水域，污染食物网或被雾化并导致呼吸系统疾病的有害藻华（HABs）的发生率似乎正在增加。随着沿海水域日益退化，居住在沿海地区的人口正通过迁徙和繁殖迅速增长；这两个共同的特点引起了公众对沿海海洋环境的新认识和关注。在该中心的支持下，迈阿密大学的研究人员将把注意力集中在与佛罗里达相邻或附近的亚热带和热带海洋中与赤潮有关的研究上。为了创造一个海洋研究人员和生物医学科学家充分合作研究的探究环境，中心的每个研究项目将有两位主要研究人员，一位海洋学家和一位生物医学研究人员。总体而言，迈阿密大学海洋科学亚热带和热带海洋与人类健康研究中心（CSTORMS）将包括三个研究项目和三个核心设施。这三个研究项目被称为休闲微生物（海洋亚热带和热带环境中监测休闲水质的微生物指标评估），有毒的HABs（有毒藻类：亚热带和热带沿海水域和开放海洋环境中的普遍现象？）和HAB功能基因组学（亚热带有害藻华物种的功能基因组学：短卡雷氏菌戴维斯）是这个NSF提案的主题。三个核心设施，即基因组学、遥感和有毒藻类培养，将支持这些研究项目，并由NIEHS资助。娱乐微生物将调查目前在亚热带娱乐海水中微生物指标对人类健康影响的使用情况，将正在进行的海洋物理环境建模与在海滩上引起或表明公共卫生问题的微生物特征相结合。环境工程师、遥感海洋学家、微生物学家、物理海洋学建模师和流行病学家的合作希望发现沿海污染的基本预测指标，包括微生物的停留时间和运输途径。有毒藻华将扩大现有的有害藻华（HABs）研究，该研究由NIEHS海洋和淡水生物医学科学中心和NIEHS资助的佛罗里达国际大学(FIU)-迈阿密大学（UM） ARCH计划进行，以研究低浓度浮游植物物种的种群动态。许多种鞭毛藻、蓝藻和其他藻类产生的毒素目前没有被人类注意到，因为这些物种的密度不足以产生有害数量的毒素，或者因为它们位于人类没有接触到毒素的海洋区域。为了更好地了解产生毒素的分子机制和群体动态，HAB功能基因组学将研究短克雷氏菌在开花和不开花条件下的mRNA表达，量化不同环境条件下短克雷氏菌培养物的基因表达模式，并利用遗传标记描述田间开花期间的群体差异。行政事务处将通过外联和教育鼓励跨学科和机构间的综合合作，并将得到内部和外部咨询委员会的支助。更广泛的影响：CSTORMS的更广泛目标是促进对人类健康具有重要意义的创新性跨学科科学研究，并培养有关影响亚热带和热带海洋及其相关人口问题的生物和海洋科学科学家。为了完成其在亚热带/热带海洋和人类健康方面的研究项目，CSTORMS将与佛罗里达国际大学（FIU）（迈阿密，佛罗里达州）、疾病控制和预防中心（CDC）（亚特兰大，佐治亚州）、迈阿密戴德县卫生部（迈阿密，佛罗里达州）、佛罗里达大学（盖恩斯维尔，佛罗里达州）和其他机构以及其他海洋和人类健康中心的跨学科科学家合作。

ABSTRACT OCE-0432368NSF-NIEHS Research Center of Excellence in Oceans and Human Health at the University of MiamiOver the past decade, there has been increasing recognition that the ocean and the ocean-land interface are the sources of organisms and chemicals that can profoundly affect human health. The incidence of harmful algal blooms (HABs) that contaminate the food web or become aerosolized and cause respiratory disease, for example, seem to be increasing in coastal waters worldwide. Coupled with the increasing degradation of coastal waters is the fact human populations inhabiting coastal areas are growing rapidly via migration and reproduction; these two coincident characteristics have resulted in new public awareness and concern for the coastal marine environment.With support for this Center, researchers at the University of Miami will concentrate attention on HAB-related research in the subtropical and tropical oceans adjacent or near Florida. In order to create an environment of inquiry in which oceanographic investigators and biomedical scientists are engaged in fully collaborative research, each research project at the Center will have two principal investigators, an oceanographer and a biomedical researcher. Overall, the University of Miami's Center for Subtropical and Tropical Oceans and Human Health Research in the Marine Sciences (CSTORMS) will include three Research Projects and three Core Facilities. The three Research Projects, known as Recreational Microbes (Assessment of Microbial Indicators for Monitoring Recreational Water Quality in Marine Subtropical and Tropical Environments), Toxic HABs (Toxic Algae: a General Phenomenon in Subtropical and Tropical Coastal Waters and Open Ocean Environments?), and HAB Functional Genomics (Functional Genomics of a Subtropical Harmful Algal Bloom Species: Karenia brevis Davis) are the subject of this NSF proposal. The three Facilities Cores, known as Genomics, Remote Sensing and Toxic Algal Culture, will support the research projects and are funded by NIEHS.Recreational Microbes will investigate the present use of microbial indicators of human health effects in subtropical recreational marine waters, incorporating ongoing modeling of the physical oceanographic environment with the addition of characteristics of microbes causing or indicating public health problems on beaches. This collaboration of environmental engineers, remote sensing oceanographers, microbiologists, physical oceanographic modelers and epidemiologists hope to discover basic, predictive indicators of coastal contamination, including residence times and transport pathways of microbes. Toxic HABs will expand existing research into Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) being conducted by the NIEHS Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Sciences Center and the NIEHS-funded Florida International University (FIU)-University of Miami (UM) ARCH Program to study population dynamics of phytoplankton species at low concentrations. Many species of dinoflagellates, cyanobacteria and other algae produce toxins that are not presently noticed by humans because those species are not dense enough to produce harmful quantities of toxins or because they are in areas of the ocean where humans are not exposed to the toxins. To better understand the molecular mechanisms and population dynamics that produce toxins, HAB Functional Genomics will investigate mRNA expression in Karenia brevis populations in bloom and non-bloom conditions in the field, quantify patterns of gene expression in K. brevis cultures exposed to different environmental conditions, and use genetic markers to describe population divergence among blooms in the field. An Administrative Office will encourage integrated interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaboration through an outreach and education, and will be supported by Internal and External Advisory Committees.Broader Impacts: The broader goals of CSTORMS are to foster innovative interdisciplinary scientific research of importance to human health, and to train scientists in the biological and oceanographic sciences concerning issues affecting the subtropical and tropical oceans, and their associated human populations. To accomplish its research program in subtropical/tropical oceans and human health, CSTORMS will collaborate with interdisciplinary scientists at Florida International University (FIU) (Miami, FL), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (Atlanta, GA), the Miami Dade County Dept of Health (Miami, FL), the University of Florida (Gainesville, FL), and other institutions, as well as other Oceans and Human Health Centers.