The National Science Foundation has awarded UCSC a major research instrumentation grant to help develop the campus's new Molecular Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics (MEEG) Facility. The purpose of the facility is to provide state-of-the-art technology for evaluating the genetic structure of plant, animal, and microbial populations and assessing rapid evolution of populations in changing global environments.

The facility will be used by researchers analyzing populations in both terrestrial and marine environments. The MEEG facility will also provide an opportunity for student researchers at UCSC to be trained in the latest techniques.

Professors Jonathan Zehr in the Department of Ocean Sciences and John Thompson in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology submitted the proposal for the grant on behalf of more than 12 research laboratories in five academic departments. The $245,000 NSF award is for major pieces of equipment that will increase efficiency in DNA preparation and increase the number of DNA samples that can be analyzed each week, Thompson said.

The new grant is part of a coordinated effort within the Division of Natural Sciences over the past year to raise the estimated $1 million needed to equip the MEEG facility. So far, over $800,000 has been raised, primarily through major contributions from the division, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and NSF. Additional contributions have come from several academic departments, including Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Molecular, Cell, & Developmental Biology, Ocean Sciences, and Environmental Toxicology, as well as other sources. The Packard contribution of over $200,000 was provided to augment research conducted for the UCSC part of the Packard-funded Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) project.

"These combined contributions are allowing us to develop a facility that will put UCSC researchers at the cutting edge in incorporating molecular techniques into research on a wide range of questions in ecology, evolutionary biology, and other areas of the biological sciences," said Thompson, who has coordinated the overall effort to develop the MEEG facility in collaboration with Zehr and Grant Pogson, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.

"Development of this research and training facility is the kind of interdisciplinary effort that is the hallmark of UCSC," he added.

By this fall, the MEEG facility will include two new capillary DNA analyzers, one for DNA sequencing and the other for analyses of DNA fragments used in a wide range of DNA fingerprinting techniques. The facility will also house new robotics for DNA sample preparation, thermal cyclers for amplifying DNA samples, workstations for analysis of DNA output, and a flow cytometer for studies of DNA content.