in the lab The
Huntsman Marine Science Centre’s research program has expanded
aggressively, taking on projects from the worlds of aquaculture, pharmaceuticals and oil and gas. The surprise is what they’re short on: salt water. Chris
Bridger, the manager of the aquatic services department at the
Huntsman, has been busy pushing his department into new areas of
research and research services. “Our limiting factor at the Huntsman right now is salt water – we’re out of salt water.” In case you missed it, he repeats:“We are literally out of salt water.” It’s
a little hard to believe, given the Huntsman is right beside the ocean.
But when you do research on animals that live in the sea, you go
through a lot of water to keep them happy and healthy. All that water
must be pumped up to the labs and tanks that house aquatic life. The
Huntsman may be more widely known in the province for its aquarium and
educational programs. The organization is a not-for-profit, established
in 1969 by a consortium of groups from academia, government and
industry. There’s a thoroughly modern aquarium for the public to peruse.
But behind the fence, past the aquarium facility, lie multiple
buildings full of tanks, fish, lobster. The scientists and technicians
who work there are conducting breeding programs, looking at fish health
and toxicology and examining potential effects of climate change on sea
life. As a research facility that receives no “core”funding – that is, no regular, reliable grants – the Huntsman relies on a lot of contract and project work from industry partners to generate revenue. One such project is looking at a proposed pharmaceutical treatment for sea lice, a parasite that can damage salmon. Aquaculture companies use these treatments from time to time to keep their fish healthy. The Huntsman is set up to do not only the clinical trials for efficacy – whether it actually works – but also to look at environmental effects: what problems might it create if a new treatment builds up in the wasted food or fish excrement under an aquaculture sea cage? How long before it starts affecting lobster – if ever it does? “We have a four-year project that’s looking at if there was an oil spill,”says Huntsman researcher Duane Barker. “What
if a tanker went down, what if a drill site had a problem, what if a
pipeline cracked, and there was an oil spill, what would happen to the
larval stages of a lot of these commercial species, like cod? Could the
eggs even be fertilized?” Barker
holds the New Brunswick Innovation Research Chair in aquatic
biosciences. He’s only been here a handful of months, but plans to do
work on other projects, as well, looking into the role of parasites in
disease transmission in fish. Everywhere
you look when you visit the research buildings at the Huntsman, there
are upgrades planned or in progress to support the team of 15 research
scientists and technicians as they take on more work. Just three years
ago, there were only five people working in the aquatic services
department. There
are upgrades in the levels of skills and data tracking required, too.
“Cross your i’s and dot your t’s”is an old saying, but good laboratory
practice includes crossing your zeros, to keep them separate from your
O’s. Bridger says it can be“dictatorial,”but it’s part of what makes
science, science. And, having high standards in the lab can attract more research money – and jobs – to New Brunswick. A
bit about the economics: Half of the $2 million that aquatic services
department’s research program brought in this year is from outside New
Brunswick – direct investment from outside the province. The goal is to
make that 80 per cent. “Our future could be into doing MSDS sheets,”says Bridger. (Material safety data sheets are documents that list the hazards of a given chemical.) “For
large companies, chemical companies, every product needs to have
exposures to daphnia, to rainbow trout. It’s on the MSDS sheet. “With Duane coming on fish health and toxicology, that’s another branch that we’re basically moving into as well.” Back to salt water for a moment: The
Huntsman brings in 780-800 U.S. gallons per minute of saltwater,
purchased from the pumping system of their neighbour, Fisheries and
Oceans Canada’s Saint Andrews Biological Station. Thanks to recirculation, they use even more than they pump: up to 1,500 gallons per minute. But they need more. “We’re
now in the process of proposing and trying to get funding to upgrade
for our own salt water line, for redundancy,”he says.“And the upgrade is
to 3,000 U.S. gallons per minute.” All that salt water supports very hands-on, fish-slime-covered, applied research. “One
of the things that Huntsman does not do, is you won’t see technicians
coming to work, wearing a lab coat all day long, playing around with
knobs and boxes that have dials and spit numbers out,”says Bridger.“What
we do here is waterworks, animals.” Martin wightman wightman.martin@brunswicknews.com Science and research columnist, and copy editor at Brunswick News. In the Lab appears every other week in Innovate |
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