USU Biologist Receives $1.3M NIH Grant

Utah State University biologist Mike Pfrender received a $1,341,453 award from the National Institutes of Health to fuel ongoing study of water fleas. The tiny aquatic creatures are known to the scientific community as Daphnia.

“Daphnia is a compelling study organism because we have a wealth of data spanning more than a century of intensive ecological investigation,” says Pfrender, who co-founded the international Daphnia Genome Consortium. “These data illustrate how the organism has adapted to environmental changes.”

In collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, the consortium will soon supply public access to the recently sequenced Daphnia pulex genome.

“This NIH grant complements the Daphnia genome project by funding our continued development of a genomic tool kit,” says Pfrender, who joined USU’s Biology Department faculty in 2001. “We can now examine how individual genes function, and how the entire genome responds to ecological challenges.”

Pfrender is leading an international research group including scientists from Switzerland’s University of Basel, Indiana University Bloomington and the University of New Hampshire, to tackle the four-year project.

Daphnia provides a valuable research model, he says, because it is related to a variety of well-studied organisms, including insects, and is widely used as a bioindicator in environmental monitoring and ecotoxicology research.

“It is an ideal organism to utilize to study the impact of global climate change on freshwater ecosystems,” he says. “Its natural freshwater environments are readily mimicked in the lab, which allows large-scale genomic experiments of environmental stressors.”

Pfrender says Daphnia is a unique model for understanding how the environment shapes genes and genomes. “With the development of these resources we are now in a position to explore fundamental biological questions: ‘How do Daphnia resist threats such as parasites?’ ‘How does Daphnia develop immunity responses?’”

The research is directly relevant to human health, he says.

“With continued study, we can ask such questions as ‘How do stressors in the environment influence new mutations?’ and ‘What are the genetic mechanisms underlying aging in Daphnia?’”

The grant is administered through the NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

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Contact: Mike Pfrender [Pfrender@biology.usu.edu], 435-797-7623

Writer: Mary-Ann Muffoletto [maryann.muffoletto@usu.edu], 435-797-1429