ARI-R2: Repair and Renovation: Advancing Research in Biodiversity Science

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AbstractThis award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Funds are provided to update the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute's facilities in Dyche Hall. The Biodiversity Institute (BI) has achieved national and international leadership in biodiversity science in research/ research-training. This project will advance four cardinal transformations: (1) create a research infrastructure that is flexible and adaptable to a rapidly evolving landscape of research approaches, tools, techniques, and instrumentation; (2) provide previously unavailable research capabilities, e.g., cloning DNA, digitizing morphology for computational phylogenetic analyses; integrating natural systems and human systems modeling schemas for forecasting the impacts of environmental change; (3) keep the BI's community of scholars/collaborators at the frontiers of transforming knowledge discovery in biodiversity science. Each will expand the BI's scope and scale of research/training in biodiversity science, and create integrative, collaborative and teambased research and research-training environment; and (4) keep the BI at the frontiers of training students as systems biologists across genes to ecosystems and their informatics realms. The BI, in partnership with five KU academic departments, is a global leader in the research/training of the next generations of biodiversity scientists, with 50 to 60 graduate students in residence annually. Further, the project will enable the BI to: expand its hands-on lab training in molecular techniques to undergraduates, including underserved minorities at a local tribal university; and bring biodiversity science to K-12 and public audiences via the BI's Natural History Museum.The funds will provide for: (1) the expansion and consolidation of the Genomics Complex from 3 disparate labs into 5 integrated facilities with enhanced capabilities for sequencing, and new capabilities for cloning, biocomputation, and cryogenic management of more than 80,000 biotic tissues, an irreplaceable genetic research resource; (2) new Biotic and Morphology Analysis labs for discovering organismal characteristics that complement and test genetic research; (3) a new GIS Analysis lab for synthesizing and predictive modeling of environmental phenomena; and (4) a new, 5-fold larger Server Room with high-watt density server racks, dedicated power and air-cooling systems for expanded archiving and serving the data for this research and research-training.