Join the Conversation on the future of science... your ideas straight to the White House

I received an announcement the other day from AAAS, soliciting ideas from the scientific community that can help shape Obama's science policy and direction in the coming years. I love the idea. Its so often, as one scientist doing your own research that is just a small piece in a large puzzle, to feel like its hard to figure out how to move what you know into the public sphere. That is why this solicitation by the white house is so exciting, they want to hear from everyone who has a good idea, and perhaps a new perspective. Of course Obama has a team of heavy hitting scientists to advise him as well as the whole AAAS and the National Academy of Science.... but with his administration's very grass roots mentality, they want to hear from a broad scope of ideas.

see: http://promo.aaas.org/expertlabs/grandchallenges.html

I am submitting a few statements on using large scale sequencing projects to study communities of eukaryotic phytoplankton (aka "algae"). They are important for controlling the carbon cycle in the oceans and they have potential as a sustainable biofuels feedstock. I believe algae could be part of distributed generation energy systems that will provide sustainable energy production on local as well as regional community scales. One thing slowing down current progress (if not holding us back) is our limited basic science knowledge about these organisms. With new genomic (DNA sequencing) and transcriptomic (RNA sequencing) methods we are able to make quick progress in understanding the basic biology of these organisms. The progress we are now making in leaps and bounds is the result of next generation sequencing technology, which is high throughput (generating hundreds of thousands and even millions of sequences in a single run) and is cost effective enough to employ it large scale. As a scientific community, we are using these new technologies for a great number of studies, but we could still do more and be more strategic. How about a new and improved, well coordinated and well funded aquatic species program. The more we learn about algal physiology, the more we learn about the ocean's biological response to climate change as well as ways to improve algae as a biofuels feedstock. Seems like a win win situation for me.