CSBR:Living Stocks. Securing the future of the Chlamydomonas Resource Center collections: security and accessibility

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The unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii serves as a unique model system for studies of photosynthesis, metabolic pathways, flagellar biogenesis and function, signal transduction, and other aspects of cell biology. Chlamydomonas allows researchers to apply the powerful genetic techniques available in a simple microbial system to an organism with chloroplasts and flagella. The system also provides a platform for applied research in biofuels and in protein engineering. Uniquely among algal systems, over 50 years of experimentation by hundreds of laboratories has generated a collection of more than 4000 mutants affecting many cell processes. The Chlamydomonas Resource Center, in its 36th year of operation, serves as the central repository to receive, catalogue, preserve and distribute wild type and mutant cultures of C. reinhardtii. It also maintains and disseminates molecular reagents such as plasmids and provides information on this organism to the international scientific community. The Center prepares and distributes teaching kits, with simple reagents, strains and instructions to allow high school and college biology students and classes to perform sophisticated experiments, producing hydrogen, for example, without needing expensive laboratory facilities. By maintaining and distributing mutant strains that can be used to illuminate the functioning of flagella and chloroplasts, and by encouraging the interest of a new generation of researchers, the Chlamydomonas Resource Center plays a critical role in ensuring that this valuable model system continues to provide unique insights into many areas of biology. The aims of this project are to: 1) improve the security of the collection by cryopreservation of all living strains in liquid nitrogen, in duplicate; 2) make the mutants in the collection more useful to users by preparing and distributing custom collections of strains using a recently acquired replica-plating robot; and 3) enhance the educational use of the collection by recruiting undergraduate students to test and refine our current teaching kits, and to help the co-directors of the Center design new laboratory experiments to be distributed to teachers through the website. These enhancements of Center activities will insure that users have access to the information and strains needed to make optimal use of this increasingly important model organism for research and teaching. A frequently updated web site (chlamy.org) provides descriptions of all cultures and plasmids in the collection, historical information and reference material on genetic loci and mutant alleles, a library of useful laboratory protocols and laboratory exercises, as well as genetic and molecular maps, and links to other relevant information.