MRI: Acquisition of a fluorescence microscope to grow research and training at St. Catherine University

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An award is made to St. Catherine University, a primarily undergraduate institution, to acquire a Leica DM6B fluorescence microscope. This microscope will expand the research capacity of biology faculty at the university and will engage students from the university's College for Women in research training in the biological sciences. St. Catherine has among the most ethnically and economically diverse population of students enrolled in Minnesota's four-year public and private colleges. The fluorescence microscope will help prepare women undergraduates of all backgrounds to succeed in graduate school and scientific careers by providing access to and training in modern microscopy, imaging techniques and image analysis. The expanded research capacity made possible by the microscope will also contribute to efforts to recruit excellent and diverse faculty while aiding current faculty to conduct research. Access to this instrumentation will stimulate new collaborations among faculty within the university's Biology Department, between biology faculty and those in broader STEM disciplines, and with existing research collaborators at other universities.The deconvolution DIC fluorescence microscope will expand research programs spanning the areas of ecology, developmental biology, genetics, cell and molecular biology, and phylogenetics for four biology faculty. A project investigating how nitrogen and phosphorus shape and control the structure and function of cyanobacterial and algal assemblages will contribute to the ability to better predict changes to freshwater ecosystems in response to environmental stressors. The exploration of the development of dimorphic traits in Caenorhabditis elegans will provide insights on the role Hox genes in neuronal development. The characterization of the temporal or spatial subfunctionalization of ammonium transporters in the model liverwort Marchantia polymorpha will elucidate the evolutionary consequences of gene transfer between domains of living organisms. Selective staining of heterochromatin with fluorescent probes will allow detection of differences in chromatin structure that might impact the physiology, gene expression, and ecobiology of diploid compared to polyploid populations of the non-model invertebrate, Lumbriculus. Not only will this microscope meet the current needs of the biology department, it will also allow for programmatic expansion in the future.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.