F. The molecular control of calcification.
This program is in its infancy but is one that I am keen to develop as a major theme in my laboratory. Reef-building corals (i.e. those with zooxanthellae) have extraordinary rates of calcification. The underlying mechanisms behind these high rates of calcification are unclear despite the fact that this must be one of the most important processes with coral reef systems. The major objective of this program is to understand these processes at the molecular level. I have made some significant progress in the last two years. In collaboration with Professor Rudy Raff at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Indiana University, Bloomington, I have built the first expression (cDNA) libraries from the growing tips of corals of the genus Acropora and have probed the library successfully for gene products associated with the deposition of coral. The results of this project are extremely exciting and are causing us to re-think how calcification occurs in corals.
