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Aquatic Toxicology Laboratory

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The Aquatic Toxicology Laboratory is a state-of-the-art facility designed to support a wide range of high throughput ecotoxicology experiments and produce results at scale. It is supported by staff at GCRL to provide high-quality cutting-edge ecotoxicology research to understand and protect the environment and improve ecosystem management practices for the Gulf and beyond.

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Facility and Resources

The Aquatic Toxicology Laboratory is an 11,000 square foot ecotoxicology research facility dedicated to small aquatic vertebrate and invertebrate ecotoxicology exposures.  The facility houses a pair of aquatic exposure chambers and contains supporting aquaculture, chemistry, molecular biology and analytical instrumentation labs.  The entire facility is designated a Biosafety Level 2 research laboratory.  The facility is constructed from the ground up to support ecotoxicology research.  The facility has positive air pressure control, outside air replenishment on demand, HEPA air filtration, as well as effluent water filtration.

Each exposure chamber is housed within a hood to manage off-gassing of toxins, and can control dosing, as well as control a wide range of environmental parameters including salinity, temperature, and multiple gas concentrations.  The gas control system allows for easy control of gas concentrations in solution to support exposures in hypoxia as well as CO2 dosing to support changes in pH.  Each chamber has 6 arrays capable of supporting up to 4 replicate tanks per array.  Both exposure chambers can work in conjunction to allow for a total of up to 12 treatments across 4 replicates.

Exposures are performed in artificial seawater allowing for experiments designed to isolate the effects of specific toxins while preventing confounding factors present in natural seawater exposures. These flow through exposures can operate at flow rates up to 4 liters per hour.  All artificial seawater used for both the aquaculture lab and exposure chambers are UV sterilized and mechanically filtered to provide the cleanest possible water for both animal husbandry as well as ecotoxicology exposures.

The effluent systems provide mechanical, chemical and biological filtration to allow for recapture and safe disposal of toxins used following experimentation.  Additionally, all effluents are ozone sterilized prior to discharge to prevent the inadvertent release of harmful microorganisms in effluent.  

To support comprehensive ecotoxicology experiments and analysis, the Aquatic Toxicology Laboratory facility also includes:

Aquaculture Laboratory

The aquaculture laboratory is a 1,200 square foot modular aquatic wet laboratory. The laboratory can be redesigned as needed to support animal husbandry of a wide range of aquatic animals. It is plumbed with artificial seawater, fresh artesian well water, O2 and low-pressure mixed air. For IACUC compliance, all filtration and pump mechanisms are housed in a separate room to minimize noise with the husbandry area.

Chemistry Laboratory

The chemistry laboratory is designed for toxin mixing for delivery to the exposure chambers in a safe manner. It has in-house reverse osmosis filtration units, and it is supported by a chemical storage room, biosafety cabinet, and chemical safety hood.

Molecular Biology Laboratory

The molecular biology laboratory houses 4 workstations dedicated to sample preparation for follow on analysis in the analytical laboratory. It is supported by a freezer room containing 3 ultra-low temperature freezers and a wide range of standard freezers and refrigerators for sample storage. This lab also contains a reverse osmosis water purifier, biosafety cabinet, and chemical safety hood.

Analytical Laboratory

The analytical laboratory houses a wide variety of analytical instrumentation including qPCR, gel electrophoresis, microplate spectrophotometer, gel imager, bioanalyzer and centrifuges. Additionally, this lab houses dissecting, fluorescent, and inverted cell culture microscopes with cameras.

Since its construction in 2017, the Aquatic Toxicology Laboratory has been used for a range of experiments and research applications, including:

For more information, contact:

JEREMY JOHNSON

Associate Director, GCRL Technical Operations

Jeremy.R.JohnsonFREEMississippi

 228.818.8028