Plymouth Marine Laboratory (abbreviated as PML) in the city of
Plymouth,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, is a marine research organization and registered charity. It is a partner of the UK Research & Innovation's
Natural Environment Research Council
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is a British research council that supports research, training and knowledge transfer activities in the environmental sciences.
History
NERC began in 1965 when several environmental (mainly geog ...
(NERC). PML's chair is Janice Timberlake, its chief executive is Prof. Icarus Allen and its patron is the film-maker
James Cameron.
Research and capability
Research activity at PML broadly investigates global-scale issues of
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
and
sustainability. PML's core capabilities are centred around
biogeochemistry
Biogeochemistry is the scientific discipline that involves the study of the chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natural environment (including the biosphere, the cryosphere, ...
and
systems science,
ecosystem health
Ecosystem health is a metaphor used to describe the condition of an ecosystem.Rapport, David (1998). "Defining ecosystem health." Pages 18-33 in Rapport, D.J. (ed.) (1998). ''Ecosystem Health.'' Blackwell Scientific. Ecosystem condition can vary ...
and
human health, and
sustainable development and
biodiversity
Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...
. It has particular capacity around
Earth observation
Earth observation (EO) is the gathering of information about the physical, chemical, and biological systems of the planet Earth. It can be performed via remote-sensing technologies (Earth observation satellites) or through direct-contact sensors ...
,
ecosystem modelling,
microbial ecology
Microbial ecology (or environmental microbiology) is the ecology of microorganisms: their relationship with one another and with their environment. It concerns the three major domains of life—Eukaryota, Archaea, and Bacteria—as well as viru ...
,
Blue biotechnology,
socioeconomics
Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their loca ...
and
policy advice.
Specific research activities include the monitoring of
ocean acidity and its effects on
coral
Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and ...
s and
shellfish, and this information is reported to the UK government. As part of its research into sustainability, PML uses technology such as
photo-bioreactors to cultivate
algae that could be used in the production of
biofuels or in the treatment of waste water. Aside from its environmental research, PML also works alongside the
Boots Group
Boots UK Limited (formerly Boots the Chemists), trading as Boots, is a British health and beauty retailer and pharmacy chain in the United Kingdom and other countries and territories including Ireland, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Thailand a ...
to investigate the use of algae in skin-care products, since these organisms utilise
sunscreen-like compounds to protect themselves from the sun.
Within its Seawater Hall, PML contains an in-house, fully contained, algal scale-up pilot plant. This contains a 550L biofence photobioreactor and a 1200L
raceway pond
A raceway pond is a shallow artificial pond used in the cultivation of algae.
The pond is divided into a rectangular grid, with each rectangle containing one channel in the shape of an oval, like an automotive raceway circuit. From above, many p ...
system, as well as a range of smaller
bubble column reactor
A bubble column reactor is an apparatus used to generate and control gas-liquid chemical reactions. It consists of a vertically-arranged cylindrical column filled with liquid, at the bottom of which gas is inserted.
Principle
The introduction ...
systems at 3.5L and 11L capacity for smaller scale algal production.
These facilities are regularly used to generate dried algal biomass on the scale of grams to hundreds of grams. This algal innovation centre also investigates a range of downstream processing techniques for algal harvesting. In addition to large-scale investigations, PML has a Single Cell Genomics facility: a dedicated clean room environment for single cell isolation, equipped with a high speed
Atomic Force Microscope
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) or scanning force microscopy (SFM) is a very-high-resolution type of scanning probe microscopy (SPM), with demonstrated resolution on the order of fractions of a nanometer, more than 1000 times better than the op ...
, cell-sorting
flow cytometry capabilities and a number of liquid-handling machines.
PML has a wholly owned trading subsidiary, PML Applications Ltd., which has been created to facilitate the exploitation and application of PML research and its products and to provide a more appropriate interface for working with end users, industrial and commercial partners.
History
The Plymouth Marine Laboratory was founded in 1988, mainly due to the recommendations of a House of Lords Report. It was formed by drawing some elements of the Laboratory of the
Marine Biological Association (MBA) with the NERC
Institute for Marine Environmental Research (IMER).
On 1 April 2002, PML changed from being a wholly owned NERC research centre to an independent organisation with
charitable
The practice of charity is the voluntary giving of help to those in need, as a humanitarian act, unmotivated by self-interest. There are a number of philosophies about charity, often associated with religion.
Etymology
The word ''charity'' or ...
status.
Affiliations
* Partner in the National Partnership for Ocean Prediction (NCOP)
* Member of the Peninsular Microbiology Forum
* Co-ordinator of the
Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT)
* Member and Secretariat host of the
Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO)
* Non-country partner of the
(PEMSEA)
References
External links
Plymouth Marine Laboratory
{{authority control
1988 establishments in England
Biological research institutes in the United Kingdom
Natural Environment Research Council
Oceanographic organizations
Organisations based in Devon
Plymouth, Devon
Science and technology in Devon