This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The four-story NCSU (North Carolina State University) Phytotron built in 1968 with most of the construction (~$1.5M) and first eight years of operating funds provided by the NSF, followed by 33 years of maintenance and staffing provided by NCSU. After 42 years of continuous operation the NCSU Phytotron is in dire need of upgrades to meet present and growing demands for controlled environmental research with model and relevant plants, insects and small animals. This award provides funds to provide critical infrastructure upgrades include: (1) renovating and upgrading the core environmental systems specifically replacing chillers and pumps, re-insulating chilled water and glycol lines to accept the recent connection to university chilled water lines. Applying epoxy coating to chamber and greenhouse floors; (2) replacement of controllers modulating the environmental conditions for individual environmental chambers with sensitive digital CO2 controls; and (3) conversion of one rooftop glasshouses and adjacent plant dark room into a BSL-3 facility for funded research with select agents and other exotic high risk viral, bacterial, fungal and nematode plant pathogens.
As NC State is a premier plant biology institution, this NSF-funded legacy is an invaluable University-wide facility that is used in many federally funded research projects and is a focal point for training and research at all levels. Into the future the infrastructure renovations will allow the Phytotron to be a key public large-scale high-throughput plant phenotypic analyses facility. NC State graduate, undergraduates as well as summer REU program students from non-Research I universities and other outreach programs for underrepresented groups use the Phytotron for independent research projects under the direction of a diverse faculty who serve as role models and mentors. The renovations will have immediate scientific impacts as NCSU researchers will undertake more sensitive global climate change studies and acquire pathogens and microbes from collaborators around the world housed in the centralized BSL-3 facility certified to meet or exceed federal and state containment guidelines. The NCSU Phytotron renovations will maintain NC States broad and robust integrated contemporary biology community and greatly increase the collaborative potential and competitiveness of NCSU in these fields.
The North Carolina State University (NCSU) Phytotron is a 42,000 sq.ft, multi-disciplinary, controlled environment facility where concurrent research involving plants, insects and microorganisms is being conducted. The Phytotron contains 60+ growth chambers and greenhouses. During the NSF-funded project, we made critical upgrades to the infrastructure of the facility including chamber and CO2 controls. The renovations were needed to provide appropriate growing conditions for the translation of research from model to crop plants, wild relatives and non-native species; as well as ecological studies that require the capacity to simulate a variety of environments. Replacing chamber controls from outdated technology to state-of-the art computerized controls provides new opportunities for global change research including, for example, predicting the responses of individual organisms and ecosystems to environmental change. Epoxy-coated floors were also installed to prevent water leakage and experimental cross-contamination from floor to floor. In addition, issues related to biological containment were addressed during the project. The Phytotron has had BSL2 (BioSafety Level 2) facilities since its inception in 1968, but it became evident that BSL3 facilities were needed to keep up with research demands. With rapid migration of pests from tropical to temperate environments, a BSL3 facility is needed to study these organisms before the reach our environment. Another goal of the ARRA grant awarded to NCSU was the addition to the Phytotron of a specialized BSL3 laboratory with controlled environment greenhouse space. The BSL3 lab is a controlled-environment facility for working with and containing plant diseases and insects and can house select agents that are not currently present in the United States. The Phytotron is well equipped to maintain the security and operation of the BSL3 lab and to oversee projects conducted by researchers with a wide variety of backgrounds and experience. Planned projects include topics such as understanding population dynamics of microbes associated with food safety and examination of methods to control insect pests and pathogens that should not be released into the local environment. The upgrades enabled by the ARRA award have modernized and revitalized this almost 50-year old NSF-funded facility. Researchers at NCSU heavily use the Phytotron and the improvements ensure our ability to provide many more years of service to the researchers that have depended on it.
