Oceanographic Observatory of Banyuls-sur-Mer, France.
Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, Portugal.
farming and we can support research in several species of fish and molluscs,” he stresses.
Joint Research Activities
Oceans of opportunity in marine research Marine biologists study marine organisms and interactions with their environment, and their work can yield knowledge, products and services relevant to many areas of science and industry. The ASSEMBLE Plus project provides scientists with free access to marine biological stations, with the aim of stimulating excellent research for the benefit of society, as Dr Nicolas Pade and Georgia Bayliss-Brown explain. The world’s oceans hold great scientific interest, and marine biological stations have been established across the globe to support researchers and help them to explore the secrets of our oceans. Alongside its inherent interest, marine-based research can also yield products and services relevant to many different areas of science and industry, a point central to the work of the EU-funded ASSEMBLE Plus project (October 2017 to September 2022). “ASSEMBLE Plus is about enabling research with marine organisms, for example making accessible biological organisms from marine environments to a wide community of scientists in Europe and around the world,” says Dr Nicolas Pade, the scientific coordinator of the project.
Transnational Access Programme ASSEMBLE Plus offers scientists fully-funded access to 39 marine biological research stations, mainly in coastal areas around Europe. Scientists can apply to use the facilities either remotely or in person through the transnational access (TA) programme, which gives researchers the opportunity to work at marine biological stations outside the country where they are located. “With the TA projects we effectively serve as seed funding, allowing researchers to explore new ideas, test new theories, and push the limits of our knowledge and understanding,” outlines Dr Pade. “Very often these TA projects allow people to investigate areas that maybe haven’t yet been picked up as a mainstream research topic.” The opportunity to conduct this kind of exploratory research is highly valued, while
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Developing monitoring equipment (Photo: Flanders Marine Institute, Belgium).
Researchers can come out on the boat and take the samples that they need,” says Dr Pade. “This is something that is very much in demand.” One of the benefits of Assemble Plus is the possibility of interdisciplinary cooperation. Scientists from outside the marine biology field can apply, and this has led to novel and exciting findings. One example that Dr Pade cites is a project that involved looking at cartilage in rays. “The researchers involved in this project were interested in cartilage from a medical perspective. From working on these unfamiliar
There are also five Joint Research Activities (JRAs) within the project. The five JRAs (see Box 1) are an important part of the ASSEMBLE Plus project, each addressing different challenges in modern marine biology: genomic observatories, cryobanking, functional genomics, scientific diving and the development of instrumentation. “The aim here is to create new tools and methods that allow people to conduct research. For example, in the JRA focused on functional genomics, we’re developing methodologies to modify various organisms,” says Dr Pade. “In many cases this involves taking the gene editing technology and looking at how it can be applied in a different organism.” A further JRA is centred on genomics observatories, using samples collected on Ocean Deploying equipment at-sea (Photo: Flanders Marine Institute, Belgium).
ASSEMBLE Plus is about strengthening Europe’s capabilities in marine biological research by bringing researchers together to share skills, knowledge and equipment. there is also a lot of interest from industry in using resources from marine environments, for example in the development of new drugs. Regardless of whether a proposal is focused on applied or fundamental research, Dr Pade says the main criteria in assessing it are scientific quality and feasibility. “How good is the proposal? We also assess whether the project is feasible. A project may be scientifically sound and exciting, but can it be done at a particular location? Most of our facilities are really quite modular, so we can accommodate most proposals, provided we know in advance that we need the facilities to be set-up in a specific way,” he outlines. Some of the stations have small coastal vessels, which researchers can use to collect samples. “We have professional scientific divers to collect samples and deploy equipment.
marine organisms, they found that rays were extremely good models in cartilage research, and they learned a lot about cartilage that they didn’t know before,” he outlines. As indicated, a wide variety of projects have been supported under ASSEMBLE Plus, including many that contribute to the wider Blue Growth agenda, the long-term strategy led by the European Commission to support sustainable growth in the marine and maritime sectors. One major part of this is bio-prospecting, the search for certain types of molecules that could lead to the development of new products, while Dr Pade says the project has also supported aquaculture research. “There are possibilities to culture plankton for photobioreactors or dyes and pigments from marine bacteria for example. Aquaculture is about more than just salmon
EU Research
Sampling Day which has taken place almost every year on 21st June since 2014, now Dr Pade plans to extend this work further. “We want to grow that into a permanent observatory, with bi-monthly sampling across 15 sites. We’re starting a pilot project now to essentially make this a long-term observatory, as a European contribution to global genomics-based biodiversity observation efforts,” he says. “This continuation of the genomics observatories is a legacy of the JRAs. We’ve found that this is something that’s really lacking – there are a lot of initiatives around that are doing excellent work, but we have an opportunity here to start providing long-term, baseline data. This is very important for supporting areas like biodiversity monitoring and microbiome research.”
Participating in Ocean Sampling Day (Photo: Bigelow Laboratory of Ocean Sciences, USA).
The Five Joint Research Activities (JRAs) Genomic observatories
A genomic observatory can be thought of as an eco-system or site subject to sustained genomics, genetics or DNA research, allowing scientists to monitor long-term changes. The ambition in this JRA is to pilot coordinated sampling events in certain marine eco-systems and gather large amounts of data, that can then be subjected to further analysis.
www.euresearcher.com
Cryobanking marine organisms
There is only limited capacity to conserve marine genetic and biological resources ex situ, while it is also difficult to preserve them in an unchanged state over the longer term, which in turn constrains efforts to exploit them. In this JRA, the aim is to develop robust, reproducible cryopreservation methodologies for various life-stages of a range of marine macro-organisms and microorganisms which are currently difficult to cryopreserve.
Functional genomics
Both systemic and smallscale approaches have an important role to play in the goal of establishing firmer links between the genomic information of marine organisms and their phenotype. The aim here is to implement functional genomics approaches such as CRISPR-Cas 9 for a panel of emerging marine model organisms, and where necessary to adapt those approaches.
Development of instrumentation
Experimental systems and novel systems, such as tidal simulation systems, standardized systems, and sustainable systems are often developed for a specific research proposal, after which they are abandoned, representing a waste of time and resources. The goal in this JRA is to encourage the development of standardised experimental systems.
Scientific Diving
Images from scientific diving can lead to new insights into marine organisms and habitats, yet currently there is a lack of standardised methodologies and common datasets. In this JRA, the key aims are to standardise the underwater application of photogrammetry “a photograph based survey technique” and develop an underwater observation network.
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