$250,000 gift from Occidental Petroleum to expand KU biodiversity lab

If you're wondering where the West Nile virus will pop up next, you might want to check with Associate Professor Andrew Townsend "Town" Peterson at the KU Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center.

Using the resources of the KU Biodiversity Informatics Laboratory, he and KU scientists have successfully predicted the spread of the virus two years in a row, and now he's in Mexico gathering the data needed to forecast where West Nile will be by spring 2003.

Peterson's work and the efforts of many other KU researchers will soon be easier, thanks to a $250,000 pledge from the Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum Charitable Foundation. The pledge to the Kansas University Endowment Association will fund a major renovation of a laboratory, which is housed in the museum. Expected to be completed by January 2003, the expansion will double the space available for researchers, computers and equipment.

The improvements to the facility will aid researchers who are creating a new database that will ultimately provide access to the biological information associated with 3 billion plant, animal and microbe specimens housed in natural history museums.

"Collectively, these specimens — the result of 300 years of the biological exploration of the world — document the life of the planet," said Leonard Krishtalka, director of the museum and research center. No single database includes the collections of all the museums, which means that researchers can have a hard time knowing where to go to examine specimens.

Jim Beach, laboratory director, said the new KU facility would integrate the biological information contained in these collections, including where and when each specimen was found, and the particular species of plant or animal to which it belongs.

"Knowing the worldwide distribution of an animal, for example, can enable researchers to create computer models to help them predict the effects of a long-term drought, the future extinction of a species or the spread of a disease," Beach said.

To make predictions about the distribution patterns for a virus such as West Nile, ornithologists such as Peterson need to know where populations of crows and jays — birds affected by the virus — overlap with mosquito populations. If birds infected by mosquitoes in one state travel to another with uninfected birds, mosquitoes might transmit the virus among the birds, spreading the disease to new populations that in turn migrate to other states, Peterson said.

"Using computers, we create simulated patterns of where the birds will go, and predict where the disease will go next," he said. The predictions based on those models are then published in the scientific literature and presented to federal agencies in an attempt to provide the broader community with information to stay one step ahead.

Since entering the field of biodiversity informatics five years ago, the laboratory's researchers have secured $15 million in federal grants. The federal grants will fund six to eight additional staff members for the laboratory. Because the renovations will provide the space to house the new staff members, Beach said the Occidental gift would have a major impact on research.

The philanthropic arm of Occidental Petroleum Corp., the foundation provides support for a wide variety of areas, including education institutions, scholarships, community centers, hospitals and national social improvement organizations.

The foundation's gift counts toward the $500 million goal of KU First: Invest in Excellence. KU Endowment is conducting KU First on behalf of the university through 2004 to raise funds for scholarships, fellowships, professorships, capital projects and program support. KU Endowment is an independent, non-profit organization serving as the official fund-raising and fund-management organization for KU.

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