This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This Major Research Instrumentation-Recovery and Reinvestment (MRI-R2) award funds the purchase of a next-generation sequencing system for the University of Puerto Rico- Rio Piedras. The new sequencer system will support a range of research projects investigating biodiversity research in the Neotropics. The new system will significantly enhance research productivity and the training of students in this area. Focal research areas are: 1) environmental genomics, 2) developmental genomics, 3) evolutionary and ecological genomics, and 4) bioinformatics. All projects foster inter- and trans- disciplinary synergies and interactions among research fellows within each research area, with other research areas, the University of Puerto Rico, and the local, national and international scientific communities. The intellectual merits of this project are fourfold: 1) enhance competitive research in a primarily Hispanic serving institution of secondary education; 2) train next generation of researchers in the use of world class genomic and bioinformatics techniques; 3) provides higher visibility for basic science research as a science career option to Hispanic students by providing competitive and attractive research training opportunities and, 4) builds an operational mechanism for inter- and trans-disciplinary research within the University of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. The broader impacts of the proposed activities include an expansion of genomic and bioinformatics services to the University of Puerto Rico research community. In addition to these services, seminars and workshops to researchers and students throughout academic institutions in Puerto Rico will incorporate data from the new sequencing system. Such activities result in significant synergic and integrative activities in research, education and knowledge-transfer among disparate research areas that use genomic science. The acquisition will also support efforts to increase access to genomic data and the numbers of trained Hispanic minority professionals engaged in research and education. Data from the studies performed with the new sequencer will be published in peer-reviewed journals, and disseminated by student and faculty presentations at regional and national meetings.
The grant has served to strengthen the Sequencing and Genotyping Facility (SGF) at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras with technological advances in order to provide the newest opportunities for scientists and maintain an environment which promotes learning for the future generations. Specifically the grant provided funds to acquire one GS FLX+ 454 Roche sequencer, and ancillary instrumentation which are currently in use and have already been used for several projects and training workshops. The SGF now provides the top of genomic expertise in the Caribbean, and creates opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to experience and learn such cutting edge genomic technologies. This also includes the development of all the bioinformatics tools needed to analyze these large datasets through the collaboration with the High Performance Computing Facility (HPCF) at the University of Puerto Rico. The areas of research that were most impacted by the new equipment acquisition were those related to Omics. In particular Ecological Genomics, Microbiomes, Bioinformatics, Developmental Transcriptomics and Evolutionary Genomics. The acquisition of the sequencing equipment also expands the pedagogic possibilities of the SGF in training the next generation of researchers. This has had a huge impact on the UPR students especially by linking the SGF to undergraduate and graduate courses and by organizing workshops. The SGF is located at the University of Puerto Rico, a Hispanic serving institution whose student body is over 95% Hispanic and over 60% female, thus the development of the sequencing facility has impacted a large student body of underrepresented minorities.
