University of Georgia marine scientists have received once again a grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to explore the metabolic links in the Earth’s oceans.
Mary Ann Moran, distinguished research professor of marine sciences in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, said in a Jan. 11 news release that the $1.3 million grant would enable her team to continue their research in the role played by phytoplankton in carbon cycling.
The team is to use nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, known as NMR spectroscopy, to track various chemicals into bacterial cells.
“Half of the carbon fixation Earth is carried out by marine phytoplankton, and half of that gets released to bacteria, said Arthur Edison, an eminent Georgia Research Alliance scholar in the Franklin College’s department of biochemistry and molecular biology. Much of the process of what is termed “carbon fixation”, however, remains a mystery that the team will study, he added.
The UGA team is to collaborate with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the U.S. Energy Department’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Washington State University.
Dr. Moran’s team received a $2.4 million grant from the foundation in 2010 to investigate organic matter and nutrients flowing from the Amazon River into the Atlantic Ocean.
Mr. Moore, co-founder and chairman emeritus of Intel Corp., launched the foundation with his wife in 2000 with $5 billion to support environmental conservation and the natural world in an effort to make positive outcomes for future generations.
Aside from his business career, he is known as the source of the “Moore’s Law” concept predicting the miniaturization of components in the semiconductor industry.
Dr. Moran may be reached by email at mmoran@uga.edu and Dr. Edison at aedison@uga.edu
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