Using Tardigrades and Other Animals to Investigate Adaptations to Extreme Stresses

这个项目的主要科学目标是发现某些生物体如何在极端条件下生存。缓步动物是一群微小的，八条腿的动物，它们可以在干燥，暴露在极端辐射下或暴露在真空空间中生存。由于一些基本的生物分子在这种条件下被破坏，为了在这种极端条件下生存和恢复，水熊虫必须拥有特殊的保护机制，这只是部分理解，将在本项目中进行研究。确定这种机制可以为保护其他脆弱的生物材料，包括保质期很短的重要生物医学产品，提出可能的长期途径。几名研究生和本科生以及一名博士后将参与研究。该项目还将利用研究人员在微生物和显微镜方面的能力，为高度贫困地区的小学建造低成本的平板显微镜。将举办讲习班，培训教师如何制作这些显微镜，并制定课程计划，将显微镜的使用纳入他们的课堂，并评估该计划的影响。缓步动物是为数不多的几种动物之一，包括某些线虫、节肢动物和轮虫，它们可以在几乎失去所有细胞内水分的情况下存活下来。此外，缓步动物还能忍受其他一些种群无法生存的压力。该项目的目标是确定缓步动物产生的新保护剂，了解一些强保护剂如何在生物体中起作用，并开始了解动物保护剂的进化起源。遗传和分子研究将用于鉴定有助于抵抗干燥、冷冻、氧化应激和电离辐射的分子，并研究一些强保护剂的作用机制。这项研究的结果有可能鉴定出可能用于生物医学目的的保护分子。该项目还将在北卡罗来纳州和其他州的高贫困地区的小学里放置廉价的显微镜。在试点工作中，已经制造了500多台低成本显微镜，主要用于北卡罗来纳州的公立小学、学校的教师讲习班、博物馆和年度教师会议。该项目以试点工作的经验教训为基础，通过举办更多的讲习班、培训其他科学家在该国其他地区举办类似的讲习班以及协作评估讲习班的主要成果来扩大项目。此外，该项目还包括培训一名博士后、研究生和本科生暑期研究员，从而为STEM职业发展做出贡献。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。

The main scientific goal of this project is to discover how certain living organisms can survive some remarkably extreme conditions. Tardigrades are a group of microscopic, eight-legged animals that can survive being dried out, exposed to extreme levels of radiation, or exposed to the vacuum of space. Because some essential biological molecules are damaged by such conditions, to survive and recover from these extreme conditions tardigrades must harbor exceptional protective mechanisms, which are only partially understood and will be investigated in this project. Identifying such mechanisms can suggest possible long-term routes to protecting other fragile biological materials including important biomedical products that have very short shelf lives. Several graduate and undergraduate students and a post-doctoral fellow will be involved in the research. The project will also leverage researchers' abilities with microscopic organisms and microscopes in a program to build low cost, tablet-based microscopes for elementary schools in high-poverty regions. Workshops will be held to train teachers how to build these microscopes and develop lesson plans to incorporate microscope use in their classrooms, and the impacts of this program will be assessed.Tardigrades are among the few animal groups, including certain nematodes, arthropods, and rotifers, that can survive desiccation with loss of nearly all intracellular water. Furthermore, tardigrades tolerate other stresses that some of these other groups do not survive. The goals of this project are to identify new protectants made by tardigrades, understand how some strong protectants work in living organisms, and begin to understand the evolutionary origins of animal protectants. Genetic and molecular studies will be used to identify molecules that contribute to tolerance to desiccation, freezing, oxidative stress, and ionizing radiation, and the mechanisms by which some strong protectants work will be studied. Results from this research have the potential to identify protectant molecules that may be useful for biomedical purposes. The project will also place inexpensive microscopes in elementary schools in high-poverty regions of North Carolina and in other states. In pilot efforts, more than 500 low-cost microscopes have been built, mostly for North Carolina public elementary schools, in teacher workshops held in schools, museums, and at an annual teachers’ conference. This project builds on lessons learned in the pilot efforts, expanding the project by running additional workshops, by training other scientists to run similar workshops in other parts of the country, and by collaboratively assessing key outcomes of the workshops. In addition, the project involves training for one post-doctoral fellow, graduate students, and undergraduate summer researchers, thereby contributing to STEM career development.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.