Project Grant DESC0026452

The National Science Foundation (NSF), through its Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) Federal Grant Program (CFDA 47.079), awarded a $250,000 Project Grant to the University of California, Berkeley on August 1, 2024. This 4-year grant aims to gain new insights into the fundamental mechanisms of thylakoid biogenesis, the process of forming the intricate membrane structures within chloroplasts that enable photosynthesis in plants and algae. The project will leverage a...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Integrative Organismal Systems, under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074), provides $135,529 to the University of Wisconsin - Madison to further develop genetic manipulation techniques for the cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus. Prochlorococcus is the most abundant photosynthetic organism in the ocean, contributing substantially to global carbon fixation. The key objectives are to optimize methods for...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Integrative Organismal Systems awarded a $417,009 Project Grant to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074). This 2-year grant, effective September 1, 2023 through August 31, 2025, will further the development of genetic manipulation techniques for the marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus. Prochlorococcus is the most abundant photosynthetic organism in the ocean, contributing nearly...

This Project Grant award of $270,000.00 from the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences (CFDA 47.074) program funds a postdoctoral research fellowship focused on understanding the "cost of complexity" in multifunctional rhodopsin genes from cyanobacteria. The research seeks to determine how maintaining multiple functions, such as proton pumping and light absorption, impacts the ability of these genes to adapt to changing environmental conditions. The project will...

This three-year, $308,978 National Science Foundation project grant supports collaborative research between Professor José Gascón of the University of Connecticut and Professor Warren F. Beck of Michigan State University. The researchers will investigate the photophysical mechanisms cyanobacteria employ to protect themselves from excessive sunlight exposure. Specifically, they will determine how a ketocarotenoid bound to the Orange Carotenoid Protein serves as a light intensity and color sensor....

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) provides $701,884 to The Regents of the University of Colorado to develop a functional genomics tool kit for the filamentous cyanobacterium Nostoc punctiforme. The key products and services to be delivered include construction of a random barcode transposon-site sequencing library, generation of CRISPR tools for gene deletion and cargo DNA integration, and implementation of proximity...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) award of $665,015 to Boyce Thompson Institute For Plant Research Inc. aims to comprehensively characterize the hidden diversity of Gloeobacteria, a rare lineage of cyanobacteria. The project will isolate new Gloeobacteria cultures through field work and real-time sequencing, and then analyze their genomic, phylogenetic, morphological, and physiological traits to expand taxonomic descriptions. This research will shed...

This $574,999 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) program will support a study led by Professor Jonathan S. Lindsey of North Carolina State University on synthesizing the key pigments involved in photosynthesis - chlorophylls and bacteriochlorophylls. The objectives are to streamline a recently developed synthetic route, explore a dehydrogenation approach to access different photosynthetic tetrapyrroles, and demonstrate...

This $476,910 project grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Integrative Organismal Systems and Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) supports research examining light signaling in marine photosynthetic organisms. Specifically, the grantee Southern Methodist University will investigate the function of blue light sensing proteins called aureochromes that are widely distributed in marine algae. The university will study the photochemical kinetics, expression patterns, and...

This two-year, $151,647 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Integrative Activities program will support research into the assembly mechanisms of the oxygen-evolving complex in photosystem II. The principal investigator and one graduate student from Louisiana State University will conduct advanced electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy studies of photosystem II protein samples at the Argonne National Laboratory. They will gain experience with spectroscopic techniques and...