News Release Distributed 09/20/10

An LSU AgCenter research team is evaluating the effectiveness of biodispersants to replace chemical dispersants used in the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The AgCenter is a participant in a National Science Foundation grant that includes Modular Genetics, Inc., Columbia University and Iowa State University. The grant supports work on the production and testing of biodispersants that might be used to replace the chemical dispersants used for oil spill management, according to officials.

Headed by Andy Nyman in the School of Renewable Natural Resources, the AgCenter research will focus on the new dispersants’ toxicity to organisms critical to the Gulf ecosystem and economy.

Nyman’s team will compare the toxicity of new, microbially produced dispersants with the chemically produced dispersant COREXIT 9500, which was used extensively in the Gulf following the BP oil spill.

“We’re using a test organism called Streblospio because it is an important food of brown shrimp,” Nyman said of the small marine worms that live in the upper few inches of coastal sediments in offshore Louisiana.

The NSF funds will be used to produce and test the biodispersants developed by Modular Genetics. A team at the ISU Center for Crops Utilization Research will use the natural process of fermentation to produce the biodispersants. Then the biodispersants will go to a team at Columbia University to measure the ability of each preparation to disperse oil samples collected from the recent Gulf oil spill, officials said. The final step will be conducted by the LSU AgCenter.

Rick Bogren