Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Julian Damashek was awarded a prestigious Community Science Program grant through the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), a user facility of the Department of Energy Office of Science.
This award will facilitate no-cost sequencing of hundreds of DNA, RNA, and organic metabolites from the microbial communities living in Green Lake (Fayetteville, NY). The deep water in Green Lake, just outside of Syracuse, is permanently devoid of oxygen but contains diverse and unique microbial communities involved in metabolizing toxic compounds such as sulfides, methane, and metals, and is analogous to oceans on Earth before the atmosphere was fully oxygenated.
However, many of these microbial species were discovered recently, and many remain uncultivated in the lab. This work will use the unique laboratory capabilities of the JGI to conduct novel activity-based experiments in the lake and produce over 8 Tb of sequence data, giving an unprecedented opportunity to learn about its unique microbes.
Collaborators on the proposal include Mike McCormick (also in the Biology Department), who has pioneered microbial research at Green Lake for decades, and Bryndan Durham (University of Florida), an expert on metabolite sequencing and analysis. Much of the background work leading to this proposal grew from McCormick's years of research on the lake, supported by Hamilton.
