NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2012

定量评估浮游植物和珊瑚‘Holobion’元种群的种群和功能多样性珊瑚礁健康状况正在下降，而有害藻类水华的发生频率和分布似乎在增加。两者都可能反映了全球气候变化。然而，与这些水生生境相关的微生物群落的动态还不是很清楚。该项目的目标是分析浮游植物和珊瑚相关微生物的转录组，以便：1)表征离散种群的遗传多样性，2)通过侧重于营养物质的获取和次生代谢物基因来评估功能多样性。培训目标是进一步开发所需的生物信息学工具，以确定珊瑚礁和淡水浮游植物水华之间发生的显著不同和相似的基因表达。这个项目有可能对生物学的两个不同领域产生影响。通常，次生代谢物型基因(使今天使用的许多抗生素)在进化和生态学研究中被忽视，因为研究人员对药物发现不感兴趣，而天然产物研究人员也不具备适当研究这些基因类型的进化和生态的专业知识。该项目将有助于弥合差距，并将天然产物的研究置于进化和生态学的背景下，而不仅仅是为制药公司发现新药。然而，将对天然产品的研究纳入生态驱动的研究将为寻求发现新药物的研究人员提供重要数据。该项目还将通过麻省理工学院的本科生研究项目培训年轻科学家，并在剑桥建立第一个珊瑚俱乐部，科学家们可以在那里在非正式的环境中展示研究成果，并在波士顿地区的博物馆担任志愿者。

Quantitative assessment of the population and functional diversity in phytoplankton and coral 'holobiont' metagenomesCoral reef health is declining while harmful algal blooms appear to be increasing in frequency and distribution. Both are likely reflective of global climate change. However, the dynamics of the microbial communities associated with these aquatic habitats is not well known. The project goals are to analyze metatranscriptomes of phytoplankton and coral associated microbes in order to: 1) characterize the genetic diversity of discrete populations and 2) evaluate functional diversity by focusing on nutrient acquisition and secondary metabolite genes.The training goals are to further develop bioinformatics tools needed to identify significantly different and similar gene expression occurring among coral reefs and freshwater phytoplankton blooms. This project has the potential to impact two different fields of biology. Typically, secondary metabolite type genes (which make many of the antibiotics in use today) are overlooked in studies of evolution and ecology because researchers are not interested in drug discovery while natural product researchers do not have the expertise to properly study the evolution and ecology of these gene types. This project will help bridge the gap and place studies of natural products in the context of evolution and ecology rather than simply for the discovery of novel drugs for pharmaceutical companies. However, incorporating studies of natural products into ecologically driven research will provide important data to researchers looking to discover new pharmaceuticals. The project will also train young scientists through MIT's undergraduate research program and establish the first Coral Club in Cambridge where scientists can present research in an informal setting and volunteer at museums in the Boston area.