Isra-Mart srl : Kent State to use $1M grant to look at carbon cycle

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Isra-Mart SRL news:

A team of Kent State University professors have received a grant exceeding $1 million to analyze how micro-organisms known as “cheaters” affect the carbon cycle.

The team will use the money to study how the microbes — which feed on small chemicals that have already been digested by other microbes — affect the process of decomposition and the effect they have on whether carbon is stored or released into the atmosphere. Many believe excess carbon in the atmosphere contributes to global warming.

The team is led by Christopher Blackwood, assistant professor in the university's Department of Biological Sciences. He will collaborate on the study with professor Laura Leff and assistant professor Xiaozhen Mou, both of Kent State, and with assistant professor Gail Rosen of Drexel University.

The grant will fund a post-doctoral research fellow and will allow undergraduate and graduate students at Kent State to gain experience in the study of microorganisms and the carbon cycle.