The PIs represent all academic schools and colleges on the UMR campus, assuring that this instrumentation will be prominent in interdisciplinary research for decades, fostering productivity, funding, and knowledge to be widely disseminated. Specific research topics to which the new instrumentation is of overriding importance include: 1) Heavy metals sequestration in natural systems and constructed wetlands, 2) Uptake and volatilization of VOCs in phytoremediation systems, 3) Heavy metals transport in plants, 4) Degradation of chlorinated compounds by genetically engineered-root colonizing bacteria, .GEM-Phytoremediation., and 5) Extremophile bacteria in bioremediation. Many other research projects of environmental nature will be enhanced, though not sharing the natural systems focus. Broad access of instrumentation will be granted to faculty members and students across the UMR campus. Biological Sciences faculty and students will observe the greatest impact, as there are no greenhouse facilities available currently, even though many teach botany/plant physiology courses and perform plant-associated research. Additionally, student researchers from many departments will learn to utilize the state of the art equipment. These students and new ones attracted with advanced facilities will be trained to investigate environmental problems not yet imagined.
