{"id":83957,"date":"2018-09-17T08:09:19","date_gmt":"2018-09-17T18:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=83957"},"modified":"2019-04-05T16:43:10","modified_gmt":"2019-04-06T02:43:10","slug":"microbiome-research-1m-keck-grant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2018\/09\/17\/microbiome-research-1m-keck-grant\/","title":{"rendered":"Trailblazing microbiome research receives <abbr title=\"one million dollar\">$1M<\/abbr> W.M. Keck Foundation grant"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><div class=\"responsive-video-wrap\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"676\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2z8phCKFFrk?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0\" title=\"YouTube video player\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<figure id=\"attachment_84484\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-84484\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/manoa-keck-microbiome-yew.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/manoa-keck-microbiome-yew-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-84484\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/manoa-keck-microbiome-yew-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/manoa-keck-microbiome-yew.jpg 676w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-84484\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joanne Yew holding a field-collected vial of <em>Drosophila<\/em> sp. or vinegar flies from the Waimea site<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/wmkeck.org\/\">W.M. Keck Foundation<\/a> has awarded $1 million to support a groundbreaking University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Hawai&#699;i<\/span> project that establishes the Waimea watershed on the north shore of <span aria-label=\"Oahu\">O&#699;ahu<\/span>, <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Hawai&#699;i<\/span> as a model microbiome mesocosm&#8212;that is, a study site small enough to thoroughly investigate but large enough to reveal the complexities of natural systems. This is the first time an entire watershed, ridge to reef, has been studied to map its microbial communities and their ecosystem processes.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The W.M. Keck Foundation is noted for rewarding cutting edge, high-risk high-reward science that often can\u2019t be funded by federal agencies which can be more risk averse,&rdquo; <abbr>东精影业<\/abbr> President and Interim <abbr>东精影业<\/abbr> M\u0101noa Chancellor <strong>David Lassner<\/strong> said. &ldquo;This award recognizes the capacity <abbr>东精影业<\/abbr> has built in the microbiome sphere with world class researchers. Thanks to the immense technological innovations in <abbr title=\"deoxyribonucleic acid\">DNA<\/abbr> sequencing and this award, some of our best interdisciplinary scholars can shine a bright floodlight on the previously hidden world of microbes and its fundamental role in shaping healthy ecosystems.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Led by <strong>Margaret McFall-Ngai<\/strong>, director of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbrc.hawaii.edu\/\"><abbr>东精影业<\/abbr> Pacific Biosciences Research Center<\/a>, the Keck award supports the work of a cross-disciplinary team of <abbr>东精影业<\/abbr> researchers, <strong>Anthony Amend<\/strong>, <strong>Nicole Hynson<\/strong>, <strong>Camilo Mora<\/strong>, <strong>Craig Nelson<\/strong> and <strong>Joanne Yew<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2>The importance of the microbial world<\/h2>\n<p>In the last 10 years, the field of biology has undergone a revolution with the recognition that the microbial world is critical to all aspects of human and environmental health. Multicellular organisms rely upon microbial partners (now estimated at as many as 1 trillion species) to metabolize food, fight off disease, and to run the machinery that sustains the air we breathe, the water we drink and soil under our feet.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Advancing our understanding of the microbial world will allow us to harness the power of the diverse microbes that represent an untapped natural resource whose potential contributions to health, food production and habitat restoration constitute the greatest opportunity for biological sciences in decades,&rdquo; said McFall-Ngai. &ldquo;With ecosystems and the life they support imperiled worldwide, it is critical that we quickly improve our understanding of the dynamics of our planet\u02bbs microbial foundation.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Nicole Hynson, associate professor in the Pacific Biosciences Research Center at <abbr>东精影业<\/abbr> M\u0101noa and member of the team receiving the Keck award, said, &ldquo;Together, we seek to illuminate the diversity and function of microbes within Hawaiian ecosystems to examine whether their roles are conserved across hosts and environments and the extent to which disturbances alter the functioning of microbially-mediated processes.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Due to its high ecological diversity across tractable areas of land and sea, <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Hawai&#699;i<\/span> provides a model system for the study of complex microbial communities and the processes they mediate. With more than a dozen microbial researchers, led by three members of the National Academy of Sciences, including McFall-Ngai, <abbr>东精影业<\/abbr> is a veritable microbiome powerhouse. WMKF supported work is further complemented by the work of <abbr>东精影业<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s Center for Microbiome Analysis through Island Knowledge and Investigation, a consortium of early career faculty at <abbr>东精影业<\/abbr> M\u0101noa spanning the fields of ecology, geoscience, mathematics, molecular biology to engineering and biomedicine exploring the critical role microbiomes play.<\/p>\n<p>This is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2017\/10\/30\/exploring-the-oceans-deepest-zone\/\">second award from the W.M. Keck Foundation<\/a> in the last year.<\/p>\n<p>See more images in the <abbr>东精影业<\/abbr> Foundation flickr albums: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/uh_foundation\/sets\/72157696362560524\">Hynson Lab<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/uh_foundation\/sets\/72157693567625994\/\">C-MAIKI Waimea Botanical Garden<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This will be the first time an entire watershed, ridge to reef, has been studied to map its microbial communities and their ecosystem processes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,12],"tags":[254,368,986,149,92,319,9,56],"class_list":["post-83957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","category-video","tag-biology","tag-botany","tag-microbiomes","tag-pacific-biosciences-research-center","tag-school-of-ocean-and-earth-science-and-technology","tag-uh-foundation","tag-uh-manoa","tag-video-2","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83957"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84694,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83957\/revisions\/84694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}