Dedicated Curators Ensure the NCMA Algae Collection Thrives

At most institutions, curators take care of art or historical artifacts. At Bigelow Laboratory, though, they manage a whole different kind of collection.

The National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota, housed at Bigelow Laboratory since 1981, is home to the most genetically diverse collection of marine algae in the world. Within those algae lies untold applications in everything from medicine and pharmaceuticals to agriculture and consumer products. Through the culture collection and its education programs, NCMA supports researchers and companies looking to tap into that vast potential.

But maintaining and distributing the almost-4,000 strains of algae at NCMA requires the unique skills and dedication of its three algae curators.

“In a research position, your project dictates what you do,” said Kristin Heidenreich, an associate curator who has been at NCMA for five years. “In our role, the algae dictate everything.”

Heidenreich, along with fellow Associate Curator Mark Hurd who came to Bigelow Laboratory in 2015, are responsible for the collection’s microalgae. They feed the strains, make sure they remain healthy, respond to information requests, and ship samples to clients around the world.

Kerry Dykens, an assistant curator who has been at NCMA for the last two years, is responsible for much the same for the somewhat smaller and newer macro part of the collection, maintaining all of the seaweeds, kelp, and larger species of algae.

The curator role is a big task with such a large and diverse collection, especially since, as Heidenreich joked, NCMA’s algae are particularly “spoiled.” It also makes the curator position quite different from that of other researchers at Bigelow Laboratory.

“We put the algae first in our job. Whether it’s day or night, winter or summer, we’re always taking care of them,” said Dykens. “A researcher might know a lot of one algae species, but we have to know at least something about thousands of species.”

“Even within the same species, there’s lots of little nuances you don’t know until you’ve worked with them,” Hurd added.

That said, the paths the three curators have taken to their unusual role reflects the same journey — filled with scientific curiosity and fortunate happenstance — that many scientists at Bigelow Laboratory have taken.

Heidenreich, for example, was inspired from an early age after a water quality health lab in high school exposed her to the vast, unseen world of aquatic microbes. She went on to pursue a bachelor’s in marine biology from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and a master’s in marine science from the University of South Carolina. As a graduate student, and later a lab manager at USC, she maintained several algae cultures that were actually from NCMA.

“Phytoplankton has always been my passion,” Heidenreich said. “I told a previous lab manager when I was in grad school that I wanted to work at a culture collection. He warned me that those positions don’t open up often, and I have a better chance of winning the lottery, but here we are!”

Hurd, meanwhile, took a different journey. In fact, he spent the first 30 years of his career as a chef. Eventually he returned to school, earning a degree in biotechnology from Southern Maine Community College. When a representative from Bigelow Laboratory came knocking on campus looking for NCMA interns, Hurd — a Boothbay native who grew up near the lab in its earliest days — jumped at the opportunity.

Dykens, likewise, didn’t start out in the sciences, instead earning her bachelor’s in engineering from Wentworth Institute. By chance, she spent one summer interning at Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida and was quickly hooked.

“I was doing work related to ocean technology that summer, which allowed me to step into the world of ocean sciences,” Dykens said. “The more I dove into this world, the more amazing it was.”

Dykens went on to earn her masters in oceanography at University of New Hampshire where she worked on a collaborative project led, in fact, by Bigelow Laboratory scientists. Given her experience with managing kelp cultures during graduate school, and her familiarity with Bigelow Laboratory, she was a natural fit when the inaugural macroalgae curator position at the institute opened up.

Despite their different paths, all three curators are committed to NCMA’s critical mission. The collection, Heidenreich pointed out, not only contains different species but often several strains of the same species isolated at different times and from different parts of the ocean, making it a valuable resource for comparing across time and space. Dykens likened it to a seed bank.

“There’s unlimited potential for what these algae might be able to be used for,” Dykens said. “It takes a lot of time and effort, but our job is to preserve those possibilities.”

Photo Captions:

Photo 1: Assistant Curator Kerry Dykens is responsible for the macroalgae part of the NCMA Collection.

Photo 2: The NCMA collection includes almost 4,000 strains of micro- and macroalgae that are shipped to clients around the world (Credit: Greta Rybus).

Photo 3: Curators Kerry Dykens and Kristin Heidenreich attend outreach events and tradeshows to showcase the resources of NCMA and the affiliated Center for Algal Innovations (Credit: Mike Lomas).