ICBR: Capacity: Biological Collections: Provasoli-Guillard National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota (NCMA)

几千年来，藻类一直是沿海社区食物、饲料和肥料的天然来源。在过去的几十年里，藻类在人体系统中的现代生物技术应用范围迅速扩大，应用多样化，这在很大程度上是由于藻类培养中心的维护和可用性。毕格罗海洋科学实验室的国家海洋藻类和微生物群中心（NCMA）是一个公共资源，其使命是促进、支持和使藻类用于基础研究、教育和商业应用成为可能。近四十年来，NCMA为全世界的研究人员、各级学生、教育工作者和公司提供了这种独特的资源，他们都对微藻研究生物学、全球过程和生物技术中的基本问题感兴趣。这笔新的研究资金将继续支持NCMA的使命，重要的是，通过支持汇编其持有的每种藻类菌株的新数据和现有数据和信息，扩大其藻类收藏的价值。专业管理的微藻培养收藏，来自诸如美国国家海洋生物管理局等备受尊敬的来源，对支持美国的生物研究至关重要。NCMA是少数关注藻类生物多样性的培养收藏之一，也是美国唯一一个主要关注海洋微藻的培养收藏。NCMA收藏了来自世界各地的约2800种不同的微藻和约1600种大藻菌株，其中许多藻类是独一无二的，代表着不可替代的遗传资源。该项目的具体科学目标是：1)最大限度地提高海洋微藻的生物多样性，扩大大型藻的种类；2)扩大高通量低温保存能力，以满足多样化用户群日益增长的需求；3)获得NCMA菌株的表型性状数据，即光异养生长能力和定量毒素含量；4)继续扩大我们的教育/劳动力组合。研究NCMA收集的精心培育的藻类提供了基因组、生理和/或进化指南针；它本质上为外部研究人员指明了一个方向，使他们能够发展适当的假设、模型或诊断工具来调查他们的问题。除了对藻类进行管理，NCMA的管理人员和研究人员还对藻类的特性（例如，生长速度和能力，生化特性等）进行必要的研究，为更广泛的科学和创业社区创造了巨大的价值，并推动了该领域的快速发展。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Algae have been a natural source of food, feeds and fertilizers for coastal communities for millennia. Modern biotechnology uses of algae in human systems have been rapidly expanding in scope and diversifying in application over the past few decades, in no small part due to the maintenance and availability of algae culture centers. The National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota (NCMA) at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences is a public resource whose mission is to promote, support, and enable the use of algae for foundational research, education, and commercial applications. For nearly four decades, the NCMA has provided this unique resource for researchers, students at all levels, educators and companies worldwide, all interested in working with microalgae to investigate fundamental questions in biology, global processes and biotechnology. This new research funding will continue to support the NCMA in its mission, and importantly expand the value of its algae holdings by supporting the compilation of new and existing data and information about each of the algae strains it holds. Professionally curated microalgae culture collections, from well-respected sources such as NCMA, are essential to support biological research in the United States.The NCMA is one of a small number of culture collections focused on algal biodiversity, and the only one in the U.S. with a primary focus on marine microalgae. The NCMA curates ~2,800 distinct microalgal and ~1600 macroalgal strains isolated from around the world, with many of the algae in the NCMA Collection being unique and representing an irreplaceable genetic resource. The specific scientific objectives of this project are to 1) maximize curated biodiversity of marine microalgae, and expand macroalgae strain holdings; 2) expand high-throughput cryopreservation capabilities in order meet the increasing needs of a diversified user base; 3) generate phenotypic trait data for NCMA strains, namely photoheterotrophic growth capabilities and quantified toxin content; and 4) continue to expand our education/workforce portfolio. Studying curated algae from the NCMA collection provides a genomic, physiological and/or evolutionary compass; it essentially points external researchers in a direction that allows them to develop the appropriate hypotheses, models or diagnostic tools to investigate their questions in nature. Beyond curating algae, the NCMA curators and researchers generate essential research data on the characterization of its collection (e.g., growth rates and capabilities, biochemical characterization, etc.) creating great value to the broader scientific and entrepreneurial communities, and enabling rapid progress in this field.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.