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| Enlarge Image Associate Scientist Dennis McGillicuddy of the Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering Department and Senior Scientist John Stegeman of the Biology Department lead the new Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health. In collaboration with partners at the Marine Biological Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, WHOI researchers are focusing on the population dynamics of ocean microbes and their impacts on humans. |
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| Enlarge ImageDennis McGillicuddy launches a satellite-tracked drifter into the Bay of Fundy to examine how ocean currents circulate water and the harmful algae Alexandrium into and out of the bay. McGillicuddy led the first COHH-sponsored research expedition in May 2005 on R/V Oceanus. (Photo by Mike Carlowicz, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) |
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Researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the
Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) have embarked on a novel collaboration
to investigate harmful algal blooms, ocean-borne pathogens,
and potential pharmaceuticals from marine sources.
Now in its first year, the Woods Hole Center for Oceans
and Human Health is one of four similar centers around the
country, created by the National Science Foundation (NSF)
and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to study “risks and remedies from the sea.”
The Woods Hole center will receive $6.25 million over five
years to concentrate on algae and pathogens that affect coastal
New England, using local waters as a model for temperate
coastal oceans throughout the world.
Human health and welfare are intimately tied to the oceans.
Fisheries yield 130 million tons of food each year, while
biologists and chemists continue to uncover useful medicinal
compounds among the snails, sponges, and other marine creatures.
At the same time, exploding populations of toxic algae cause
respiratory problems and shellfish poisoning, as sewage and
runoff fill coastal waters with contaminants that poison
fish and infect swimmers.
Filling a ‘scientific gap’
As
more people move to the coast, “these interactions
between human populations and the ocean are going to be increasingly
important to public health,” said John Stegeman, director
of the new center and chair of the WHOI Biology Department.
Advisors to NSF and NIEHS found a “scientific gap” in
the state of knowledge about the ocean’s influence
on human health and called for a merger of traditional biomedical
research with physical ocean science, said Frederick Tyson,
the center’s program administrator at NIEHS. Four Centers
for Oceans and Human Health have been established: at WHOI,
the University of Hawaii, the University of Miami, and the
University of Washington.
“The ocean is a turbulent fluid medium that’s
changing all the time,” said Dennis McGillicuddy, a
WHOI physical oceanographer and the center’s deputy
director. “In order to make significant progress in
health concerns, we have to grapple with how physics, biology,
and chemistry intersect and interact. It’s really a
fundamentally new direction for this research.”
Harmful algae, bacteria, and pathogens
Two Woods Hole projects focus on Alexandrium,
a harmful alga that blooms yearly in the Gulf of Maine, producing
a potent toxin that can accumulate to dangerous levels in
shellfish. WHOI Senior Scientist Don Anderson and collaborators
from the center’s genomics facility—housed at
MBL—will use DNA analysis to determine if some Alexandrium populations
are more toxic than others, and will explore how varying
ocean conditions encourage or inhibit their growth. Anderson
is working closely with McGillicuddy, who is mapping how
coastal currents distribute Alexandrium, with a
long-term goal of developing a model that can predict blooms.
(See “Seeing Red in New England Waters.”)
MIT environmental engineer Martin Polz is collaborating
with WHOI physical oceanographer James Lerczak to determine
the conditions that encourage the growth of virulent strains
of Vibrio, a naturally occurring bacterium that
can infect swimmers’ eyes, ears, and wounds, and causes
95 percent of seafood-related death in the United States.
WHOI biologist Rebecca Gast and MBL biologist Linda Amaral-Zettler
are investigating the distribution and survival of human
pathogens like Giardia in order to create a model
that can predict where and when they can be found.
-Andrea
Baird
Posted: May 26, 2005 [top] |
