NERC is celebrating the five year anniversary of its publicly-funded Environmental Omics Facility (NEOF) which began operations on 1st October 2020. NEOF is provided by the Universities of Liverpool and Sheffield, and like its predecessor NBAF, has been managed by the British Geological Survey (BGS).
The University of Sheffield hosts the Visitor Facility for laboratory training, sample preparation and environmental DNA analysis. The University of Liverpool provides expertise and technology in genomics, metabolomics and proteomics. The capability and training provided by the two sites is highly integrated.
In the five years since its inception, NEOF has supported 234 projects, 230 publications, has run 73 training courses for 1846 online or face to face attendees, including Natural England staff on how to perform and interpret environmental DNA (eDNA) research.
During the SARS-CoV2 pandemic, NEOF supported environmental monitoring by developing novel methods for surveillance from wastewater and in wildlife reservoirs, with weekly data covering more than 70% of the English population delivered to public health officers.
NEOF Director Professor Steve Paterson says: “NEOF has a unique capability to help UK science tackle the major challenges in biodiversity and environmental change. It has been such a pleasure to be able to support the huge number of exciting projects from incredibly talented researchers over the last 5 years and we look forward to being able to continue that mission.”
NEOF Visitor Facility Director Professor Jon Slate adds: “At our laboratory in Sheffield we’ve tremendously enjoyed training some of the best up-and-coming environmental researchers. They bring an enormous range of interesting projects and ideas with them, and we’re thrilled when they depart with the genomic data and skills to complete their work. We’re also very proud of our data analysis training team, for the way they’ve equipped the wider community with ‘Omics data-handling skills.
Adele Gardner from the BGS comments: “A very successful first five years for NEOF, in which they have supported the NERC community with high quality training and cutting-edge analytical techniques. It is a pleasure to manage such a motivated facility and I am sure they will continue to do great work in the next five years.”
NEOF Steering Committee Chair Professor Barbara Mable concludes: “NEOF provides an exceptional and unique service to the NERC community, offering state of the art support in the latest laboratory and analytical methods. I was honoured to have been invited to serve as the chair of the steering committee and I have particularly enjoyed the opportunity to help younger researchers to expand their research horizons.”
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is part of UK Research and Innovation.