Dimensions IRCN: A Research Coordination Network for Biodiversity of Ciliates

纤毛虫是一种主要的单细胞真核生物（原生生物），在几乎所有的生态系统中都起着重要的作用，是遗传学和细胞功能基础研究的模式生物。已知的物种大约有7500种，但未被发现的物种可能是这个数字的三倍，尤其是在热带森林或深海等探索不足的地方。更好地了解纤毛虫的生物多样性将转化为更有效地管理生态系统或用于生物医学研究的新模式生物，但是与多细胞生物相比，实现这一点的速度更慢，难度更大。现代生物多样性研究经常使用保存下来的标本的DNA，但没有这样的纤毛虫档案。此外，与动物或植物相比，对纤毛虫进行大多数基因测序更具挑战性。最后，研究纤毛虫生物多样性的研究人员分散在世界各地，而且很多是年轻的研究人员，他们没有多少钱去参加会议或与其他实验室建立合作关系。国际纤毛虫生物多样性研究协调网络（IRCN-BC）将是一个国际合作，它将降低纤毛虫生物多样性研究的障碍，产生新的合作，建立资料存档程序，最重要的是，促进将生物多样性的分类、遗传和功能维度统一起来的研究。IRCN-BC将通过赞助研讨会和专题讨论会来制定策略和开发技术，通过为保存的细胞和DNA样本创建档案，通过维护一个网站来报告活动，吸引新成员，促进合作和共享数据，以及通过资助研究人员的旅行来实现这些目标。IRCN-BC将成为加速其他原生生物群体生物多样性多维调查的典范。传统上，少数民族服务机构（MSIs）的学生很少接触生物医学以外的生物学领域。IRCN-BC将创建一个msi联系人的电子邮件列表，向教师和学生通报IRCN-BC，特别是生物多样性与生物医学之间的联系。来自代表性不足的少数群体（非裔美国人、太平洋岛民）的学生将被纳入两个讲习班。

Ciliates are a major group of unicellular, eukaryotic organisms (protists) that play important roles in nearly all ecosystems and serve as model organisms for basic research in genetics and cell function. Approximately 7500 species are known, but three times that many may be undiscovered, especially in poorly explored places like tropical forests or the deep ocean. Better knowledge of the biodiversity of ciliates would translate into more effective management of ecosystems or new model organisms for biomedical research, but achieving this has been slower and more difficult than has been the case for multicellular organisms. Modern studies of biodiversity often use DNA from preserved specimens but there is no such archive for ciliates. Also, sequencing most genes has been more challenging for ciliates than for animals or plants. Lastly, researchers who study biodiversity of ciliates are scattered thinly and unevenly across the world, and many are younger investigators who have little money for traveling to meetings or other laboratories to build collaborations.The International Research Coordination Network for Biodiversity of Ciliates (IRCN-BC) will be an international collaboration that will lower barriers to research on ciliate biodiversity, generate new collaborations, establish procedures for archiving material, and, most significantly, stimulate research that will unite the taxonomic, genetic, and functional dimensions of biodiversity. The IRCN-BC will accomplish these goals by sponsoring workshops and symposia to build strategies and develop techniques, by creating archives for preserved samples of cells and DNA, by maintaining a website to report activities, attract new members, promote collaborations, and share data, and by funding travel for researchers. The IRCN-BC will be a model for accelerating multidimensional investigation of biodiversity in other protistan groups. Students at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) traditionally get scant exposure to areas of biology outside biomedicine. The IRCN-BC will create an email listserv of contacts at MSIs to inform faculty and students about the IRCN-BC, especially connections between biodiversity and biomedicine. Students from underrepresented minority groups (African-American, Pacific Islander) will be targeted for inclusion in two workshops.