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

Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA) is a regional partnership programme implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and executed by the United Nations Office for Project Services ( UNOPS). ...

(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