It all started with a good idea, willing partners, and a $5,000 corporate-sponsored research project. The idea germinated, blossomed, and grew into a $300,000 greenhouse and the formation of a marine algae research facility. The Maine Algal Research and Innovation Accelerator, MARIA, will be constructed on the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences campus in East Boothbay this spring. The Maine Community Foundation is providing funds for the construction project and scaling up of activity.
Mike Lomas, Director of the National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota (NCMA) at Bigelow Laboratory, had established a successful relationship with Field Energy LLC, a private company looking to develop a process to improve the quality of fatty acid products. Fatty acids are essential for healthy brain development in children and reduce cardiovascular diseases, lower blood pressure, and prevent development of hypertension. There is a huge potential market for better products. NCMA and Field Energy LLC developed a research plan. The research is now ongoing at the Laboratory, with additional support from Maine Technology Institute (MTI) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with analysis being done by Bigelow Analytical Services, another core facility of Bigelow Laboratory.
Since the partnership was well established and working smoothly, the seed money provided by MTI gave Lomas the opportunity to explore other options and expand upon the idea of “what if?” What if there was a place that could provide one-stop shopping, so to speak, for algal research and development. What if the money could be found to build a pilot-scale facility that could grow enough algae to explore new commercial algal-based products for society’s benefit as well as that of Maine aquaculture? What if such a facility could be built on site on Bigelow Laboratory’s campus so it could take advantage of the collective expertise of its scientists?
The “what ifs” resulted in the creation of MARIA, a facility that could not only grow algae, but be a center for developing universal algal standards, exploring new and varied ways that algae could be incorporated into products.