Project Grant 2628744

Federal Grant Award Summary

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Biological Infrastructure awarded $135,492 to the New York State Education Department on August 1, 2026, under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) to secure and preserve the Guccion Biorepository. This RAPID (Rapid Response Research) project will rescue approximately 68,000 irreplaceable specimens of American plants and fungi collected between 1960 and 2000, primarily from the Mid-Atlantic region. The project delivers preservation and accessibility services by rapidly transferring physical specimens and associated digital records to a coordinated network of 18 U.S. biorepositories using NSF-supported cyberinfrastructure and artificial intelligence approaches. The award, scheduled for completion by July 31, 2027, addresses an urgent conservation need to prevent deterioration or dispersal of this historically significant collection that would otherwise remain inaccessible to the broader scientific community.

The project generates substantial scientific value by filling critical data gaps in U.S. plant and fungal sampling, with collection coverage doubling existing specimen data for certain geographic regions and time periods. The deliverables support downstream applications in natural resource management, invasive species monitoring, biotechnology discovery, and studies of species responses to environmental change and urbanization. Additionally, the initiative advances scalable methodologies for scientific collection rescue through innovative use of artificial intelligence large language models, contributing broader impacts to the field's capacity for future collection preservation efforts.