New Westminster Institute to Study Great Salt Lake

May 09, 2008 by Elizabeth Ziegler

(KCPW News) The Great Salt Lake is understudied, says Westminster College researcher Bonnie Baxter, who is the director of the college's new Great Salt Lake Institute. She says in the lake right now could be organisms crucial to solving our energy crisis, such as hydrogen producing microbes, algae and other organisms that could be used for biodiesel.

"And the great thing about microbial biotech is it's all renewable," Baxter says. "You take microbes from the lake and they just reproduced. You're not harvesting anything that can't be sustained or renewed."

The new Great Salt Lake Institute received grant money from the Department of Energy to conduct a genomic study of the lake to see if these types of organisms exist there. Baxter says hydrogen producing microbes have been found in the salt water of the Earth's oceans, which indicates they could also in the Great Salt Lake. Baxter says new genetic techniques could make harnessing energy from the microbes more feasible. The Institute will also bring together researchers from a variety of disciplines to start a dialogue about the lake. She says it's frustrating that this important natural resource has been largely ignored by the scientific community.

"How does carbon-cycling work in this lake? A fundamental question in ecology - we have no idea. What's the role of microbes in this lake? No idea. What's the relationship between the different species of the algae of the lake and the brine-shrimp life cycle? I mean, really fundamental questions are unanswered," Baxter says.

In addition to seeking answers to these questions, Baxter says the new Institute also has an education mission. It secured a Department of Labor Grant to develop a Great Salt Lake science curriculum for the state's public schools. The Institute will also run a summer camp and offer research experience to its undergraduate students.

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