AquaTox Research Facility

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Recent declines in the environmental quality of inland waters and watersheds have led to an increased frequency of freshwater harmful algal blooms (HABs) in Canada, the trans-border Great Lakes region, and many areas of the world. Some freshwater HABs produce nerve and liver toxins, posing a risk to human health, and other compounds contribute to skin rashes and fish kills. This NSERC RTI grant will be used to purchase equipment to support research conducted by MSc and PhD students and PDFs funded through NSERC Discovery Grants, an NSERC Strategic Network Grant on Aquatic Ecosystem Services (Creed leads the Healthy Forests, Healthy Aquatic Ecosystems theme), and two NSERC CREATEs (including Algal Bloom Assessment through Science, Technology and Education - ABATE) (Creed is the lead PI). The requested equipment will provide capacity for research focusing on productivity and toxin production studies of freshwater HABs. The facilities are "mission critical" - the instrumental capacity is needed to support the large number of HQP supported by the successful major grants. The NSERC RTI equipment requested includes a high quality water system for preparation of reagents and media; two incubators for ecotoxicological studies; a plate reader for ELISA measurements of known toxins and developing novel cytotoxicity assessments; a modular fluorometer set up for nutrient analysis; a modular fluorometer set up for cell biomass measurements; and a custom-built flow-through injection analysis system to analyze iron and reactive oxygen, two factors critical for advancing novel hypotheses on cyanobacterial growth. Some pieces of equipment may be considered standard, but they reflect a critical need for our advancement of discovery. The AquaTox Research Facility will provide equipment that will enable us to focus on areas of research that have the strongest impact on the needs of society: methods to detect freshwater HABs; characterization of known and novel toxins; methods to detect environmental factors that initiate freshwater HABs; relationships between land-use and freshwater HABs; and strategies to reduce freshwater HABs based on scientific principles.