Expansion and Modernization of the Genetic Resources Collection at Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science

Natural history collections preserve irreplaceable records of life on Earth and provide essential infrastructure for research. This project will expand and modernize the Collection of Genetic Resources at the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science, one of the world’s oldest and largest vertebrate genetic resource collections. The collection contains high-quality genetic material from more than 140,000 individuals representing thousands of species. Despite its importance, the collection is nearing storage capacity, depends on aging infrastructure, and faces growing pressure from the increasing volume and complexity of modern genomic sampling. The project increases storage capacity, improve safety and redundancy, and make specimen data available more rapidly to researchers and the public. The project also trains undergraduate and graduate students in modern museum curation, sample management, digitization, database workflows, and biodiversity informatics. By strengthening a major research collection and improving access to its data and specimens, this project advances scientific discovery, supports education and workforce development, and enhances the nation’s capacity to study biodiversity. The project upgrades the physical and digital infrastructure of the LSU Museum of Natural Science Collection of Genetic Resources through three coordinated aims. First, the collection’s cryogenic infrastructure will be consolidated into a single renovated space, two new nitrogen vapor tanks will be installed, and the external liquid nitrogen supply system will be replaced with an on-site liquid nitrogen generator and storage tank to improve autonomy, resilience, and cost-effectiveness. Second, the project increases redundancy and reliability by replacing aging ultracold freezers, servicing existing vapor tanks, upgrading temperature and oxygen monitoring systems, and improving backup capacity for equipment failures or emergencies. Third, the project develops an integrated digital workflow that connects field data collection, barcode-based tissue labeling, specimen accessioning, and collection databases. This system will build on existing field data tools and link them with specimen tracking and public data portals such as Specify, VertNet, and iDigBio. Together, these improvements increase storage capacity by approximately 30%, reduce liquid nitrogen costs, shorten accessioning times, improve loan fulfillment, and create safer and more efficient workflows for staff, students, and visiting researchers. The resulting infrastructure, software, protocols, and best-practice materials will serve as resources for other natural history collections seeking to modernize genetic resource preservation and data accessibility. This project aligns with the NSF’s biotechnology priority area and it enhances the research competitiveness of an Estab­lished Program to Stim­u­late Com­pet­i­tive Research (EPSCoR) jurisdiction. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. NSF Award ID: 2614748 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Gregory Thom | Institution: Louisiana State University, BATON ROUGE, LA | Award Amount: $996,870 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2614748 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2614748.html