MRI-R2: Acquisition of Instrumentation for Novel Microbe Characterization by Undergraduate Researchers

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。在美国国家科学基金会MRI-R2项目的支持下，莱康明学院获得了用于细菌种类鉴定的微生物ID系统、高效液相色谱仪和组合自动微孔板读取器和培养箱。这些系统能够表征和描述由本科研究人员发现的新型微生物物种，允许将生物体添加到国际微生物培养集合中，作为世界各地科学家使用的生物资源。由此产生的数据将改善对淡水生态系统等环境中微生物生物多样性的记录，包括原始溪流、已被破坏的溪流和处于不同恢复阶段的溪流。研究经历将激励和激励许多来自宾夕法尼亚州中部农村的第一代大学生在学院学习。教学方法将在本科教育工作者会议上提出，并在莱康明学院每年举行的高中教师研讨会上提出，促进目前形成新微生物表征瓶颈的最后步骤，指导本科微生物学研究人员的教师。这些研究的结果将发表在同行评议的期刊上，并由学生和教师在区域和国家会议上介绍。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Support from the NSF MRI-R2 program allowed Lycoming College to acquire a microbial ID system for the identification of bacterial species, a high performance Liquid Chromatograph, and a combination automated microplate reader and incubator. These systems enable characterization and description of novel microbial species, discovered by undergraduate researchers, allowing the organisms to be added to international microbial culture collections that serve as biological resources used by scientists throughout the world. The resulting data will improve documentation of microbial biodiversity in environments such as freshwater ecosystems, including pristine streams, streams that have been damaged, and those that are in various stages of recovery. The research experience will inspire and motivate the many first generation college students from rural central Pennsylvania studying in the college. Teaching methodologies will be presented in conferences for undergraduate educators, and at a High School teacher workshop, held annually at Lycoming College, facilitating the final steps that currently form a bottleneck in novel microbe characterization for faculty mentoring undergraduate microbiology researchers. Results from the studies will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented by students and faculty at regional and national meetings.