Hollings Marine Lab gets funding for oyster experiments

Lowcountry oysters are about to undergo “micro-array” genomic and microbiological pathogen tests.

The Hollings Marine Laboratory “is up and running” with a $2.05 million federal “Oceans and Human Health Initiative” grant announced in August, said Director Fred Holland. The money will pay for experiments in Lowcountry tidal creeks of the technology used in the tests, “to validate in the field what we found in the lab.”

The study is designed to show the impact of contaminants in the oysters’ environment.

The initiative is funding a series of studies of the ways the marine environment and human activity can and do affect each other’s health. It includes a range of studies from pollution to the potential of the ocean as a source of drugs.