Prof. TANG Yingzhong from IOCAS visited School of Marine and Atmospheric sciences, Stony Brook University in America. The purpose of this visit was to conduct a follow-up collaborative research with Dr. Gobler for the New York Sea Grant Project---Assessing bloom dynamics of the toxic dinoflagellate, Cochlodinium polykrikoides and impacts on fisheries: Are there mitigation options?
Prof. Tang was awarded this project as the Principal Investigator after his joining IOCAS in September 2013, which led to a switch of his role in the project from PI to Co-PI（Dr. CJ Gobler is the PI now). He established the core parts of the approach and obtained some preliminary but important results for the project before he joined IOCAS. Then, he carried out some further research during the summer of 2014. Since then, Dr. ZHEN Yu, a visiting scholar from Ocean University of China, has been working on this project and however, came back to China due to the expiration of his visa, leaving behind a critical issue unresolved---the non-specific fluorescence from some pollen-like particles in the FISH detection of Cochlodinium polykrikoides resting cyst. Therefore, Prof. Tang’s major aim was to address this issue. In addition, he also planned to revise the paper about the resting cyst production by Akashiwo sanguinea.
After arriving at SoMAS, NY, USA, Prof. Tang had a preliminary discussion with Dr. Goblerand and Hattenrath about the approaches. Important progress was made for the project during Prof. Tang’s visit in SoMAS, such as the considerable enhancement in the FISH efficiency and the intensity of fluorescence emitted from the hybridized cells, which led to easier judgment for the specific vs. non-specific binding of fluorochromes, and harvesting a batch of CP resting cysts, which could be enough for multiple batches of FISH. Because of the limit of time, however, the issue about the non-specific fluorescence from pollen-like particles was not satisfactorily solved. In addition, because of relatively a long time needed for the production of resting cysts in CP, a low efficiency of production rate, and the need for a well experienced hand in taking care of the CP culture, more intensive investigation is warranted to address this issue in the future. Besides this project, they completed the revision of the manuscript about the finding of resting cyst production in Akashiwo sanguinea, which has been accepted by the internationally prestigious journal, Journal of Phycology, recently.
Nevertheless, this collaborative research made significant progress in a short period of time for the NY Sea Grant project, completed the revision of a paper, and brought back a number of algal cultures and samples that will facilitate the group's research in the future, although the targeted issue was not satisfactorily addressed.