On a breezy September day, doctoral student Zakir Bulmer sits on the edge of a boat on the Pamlico Sound and allows himself to fall backwards into the water. He’s spending the day scuba diving at different sites across the sound with his advisor, Tal Ben-Horin, an assistant professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences.
It’s an enjoyable way to spend the day, but they’re there on business. Ben-Horin and Bulmer spend one day a month collecting water, oyster and blue crab samples on the coast as part of their research for the newly established North Carolina Center for Coastal Algae, People and Environment (NC C-CAPE).
The center brings together nine faculty members from five different colleges across NC State to address the growing concern of harmful algal blooms on North Carolina’s coast. The group seeks to understand, predict and reduce the risks that harmful algal blooms pose to the ecosystem and people of coastal North Carolina.
An Interdiscplinary Solution
Solving the world’s problems takes a village. NC C-CAPE came together because the nine collaborators saw an opportunity to combine their expertises and maximize the impact of their individual research. The group — which consists of coastal oceanographers, toxicologists, epidemiologists, climate modelers and social scientists — is led by Astrid Schnetzer, director of NC C-CAPE and a professor in the Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and Scott Belcher, NC C-CAPE co-director and professor in the Department of Biological Sciences.
The scale of the center came as a surprise to Barrett Rose ’23, a research technician in Schnetzer’s lab who recently earned her bachelor’s in marine science and biological oceanography. She’s been working with Schnetzer since her senior year and started helping with preliminary sampling across the Pamlico-Albemarle Sound System prior to the center’s establishment.
“In the past few months, we’ve officially started to sample as NC C-CAPE,” Rose said. “It was a shock to see the magnitude of how much we were actually studying. It went from a small pilot study to a huge center effort.”
Data collection and analysis is only the first part of the work NC C-CAPE seeks to do. While harmful algal blooms are common in fresh waters across the U.S. and the world, major data gaps around the issue exist. Schnetzer’s data will inform NC C-CAPE’s other two projects, which focus on predicting the health risks of toxic algal blooms on mammals and humans, as well as considering how factors like climate change will affect future toxin levels in water and seafood.
“The most exciting aspect of NC C-CAPE for me is that the research doesn’t end where my expertise ends,” said Schnetzer. “What we learn from the field about algal toxins is handed to the next team to look at the bigger picture on the ecosystem level and in connection to human health.”
Student Opportunities
Faculty — and the people of coastal North Carolina — won’t be the only ones benefiting from the interdisciplinary nature of NC C-CAPE. Undergraduate and graduate students will have the opportunity to work alongside the nine principal investigators, gaining exposure to various disciplines and novel techniques and instrumentation.
“One of the wonderful opportunities for students within NC C-CAPE is they will actually switch from one lab to the other and learn how different disciplines approach the same issue,” Schnetzer said. “This interdisciplinary training will become more and more of an asset for students as they go out into the workplace.”
For Will McClure ’22, NC C-CAPE was a major factor in his decision to remain at NC State for his doctorate. As an undergraduate student, he began working in Schnetzer’s lab through the Provost’s Professional Experience Program. He went on to pursue a master’s in marine science, which he’s set to complete in December.
“We were hearing rumblings in the lab about possible funding for NC C-CAPE before the news came out,” McClure said. “I was applying to doctorate programs, and that was definitely the project I wanted to work on the most. When we heard it was getting funded, that practically made the decision for me to stay at NC State.”
McClure’s primary role for NC C-CAPE is being the main technician for the Imaging Flow Cytobot, a fluid imaging device that will be deployed into the Pamlico Sound and provide near real-time data. He’s aiming to have it ready for deployment by spring 2025.
“Blooming events can happen very rapidly and degrade very rapidly, as well. We could miss one by a couple of days,” McClure explained. “The Imaging Flow Cytobot will be key in telling us if there is a bloom happening, so we’ll know when we need to go and collect water samples to help us see what types of toxins are present.”
The Imaging Flow Cytobot is equipped with a camera and sensors that allow for the detection of particles, including algae, and produces huge abundance data sets. The device collects a 5mL water sample every 20 minutes, which generates between 15,000-20,000 images and allows the researchers to see the types of algae present.
“With this instrument actually down there, physically, in the water, we can look at the data feedback in Raleigh in real time,” McClure said.
The NC C-CAPE team is striving to make this data accessible to the public.
“We plan to have a dashboard where high school students, and anybody else who’s interested, can take a direct look at what’s really in the water,” Schnetzer said. “We’re really excited about that approach.”
