A conversation with TAU's Dr. Omri Bronstein
By Linda Chase
Dr. Omri Bronstein (Courtesy of Dr. Omri Bronstein)
I recently attended Tel Aviv University's Fall 4 TAU conference in Miami and had the opportunity to hear a presentation by Dr. Omri Bronstein, a TAU alum. Dr. Bronstein is the curator of marine invertebrates at the University's Steinhardt Museum and a senior lecturer at its School of Zoology. During our interview, Dr. Bronstein shared details of his ground-breaking research.
I asked Dr. Bronstein to explain his role at the School of Zoology.
"I am head of Ecology and Environmental Sciences at the university. I opened my lab and established my team three years ago. It is the main lab at the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, which is part of TAU. We have eight students in our lab, five PhD students and three master students."
I asked Dr. Bronstein to share how his training as an undergraduate student at The Faculty of Life Sciences at TAU prepared him for his current work.
"I was very lucky to be a student of Professor Yossi Loya, one of the founders of the School of Zoology and Life Sciences at Tel Aviv University. I consider him a dear friend. I did a project during my undergraduate studies with one of Professor Loya's PhD students before I became one of his students. One day the professor walked into the lab, approached me and said 'Step into my office. I need to talk to you.' I walked into his office and I saw my work on his desk. I thought, what have I written to upset the professor. He told me we have an international project sponsored by the World Bank. The project is to evaluate global change through changes in coral reef communities. We are working across the globe from Australia to Japan and Africa, and our station is in Africa in Zanzibar. The professor told me I would be perfect for this project. I was a bachelor living in Tel Aviv at the time and this was an amazing opportunity. I was involved in an international project that had a lot of influence in politics and decision making. I learned how important science is in shaping the way we manage this world."
I asked Dr. Bronstein to share details regarding the project he was involved in at the Natural History Museum in Vienna.
"Doing a post doctoral fellowship in Vienna is actually one of the most unlikely places for a marine biologist. There is no ocean in Australia. However, the museum had the world's leading expert in sea urchins, as well as an excellent genetics laboratory. I knew that in order to pursue my dreams of becoming an expert for that group of organisms (urchins), I realized that there were many questions that we just couldn't answer with corals. I was looking for this group of organisms which would offer all the interesting answers about corals and could help us resolve our questions about coral reefs. My goal was to find the world's best expert as I wanted to be trained and to develop new genomic tools to integrate into these model organisms. We were moving from working on individual genes to entire genomes. Instead of working on a handful of genes, we were now working on many thousands of genes. And this would allow us to reach new conclusions about the evolutionary history of many other marine organisms. I helped establish the genomic lab in the natural history museum in Indiana that has grown significantly over the past few years."
I asked Dr. Bronstein to describe some challenges he has faced in his research.
"In my research I'm trying to tackle the questions that people are normally trying to avoid and we're taking them head on. With the current tools it takes us several years, up to decades to generate the data on any given habitat. Even if we take a tiny little piece of the Red Sea, and provide a list of what species we have, it would take me many years. By the time I generate this data, the data that I've generated would be irrelevant in terms of making decisions (conservation decisions and management decisions.) It's simply too late. It's history. It's data about what was there, not about what is there at the moment. It changes rapidly, and it takes us way too long to generate the data. We need to take ecology into the 21st century. In my opinion, one of the ways to do that is using genomic genetics and genomic tools in our oceans. We are actively pursuing environmental DNA. In other words, this is DNA that is present in the environment. Even as we speak, we release DNA into our environment, office, car and the ocean. All organisms do that. We have machines that are sensitive enough to detect minimal amounts of DNA. DNA (like fingerprints) is a unique identifier of the species and of the organism that it originated from."
"What I do now is collect water samples. These water samples actually contain DNA of all the organisms that are present in that environment. Instead of running decades of manual surveys and sending robots to the bottom of the ocean, I can replace all that with a simple water sample, and I can identify the organisms without the need to actually feed the adult organism. This also allows me to detect species as they arrive in a new environment, because they would probably arrive as embryos, as larvae. With my DNA samples I can now identify an invasive species even before it is present in the environment. Therefore, I can detect the species in a very, very early stage of its invasion. There are more than 1,000 invasive species which are completely altering the entire ecology of the Mediterranean."
I asked Dr. Bronstein to explain how sunscreen damages coral reefs.
"This was a study that I did during my master's degree which was a collaboration between an Israeli team led by Professor Loya and myself. We did all of the actual laboratory experiments in our field station in the Red Sea and were using coral larvae. These are the embryos of corals. We tested different chemicals that we suspected to be harmful for these organisms. One of the key chemicals was oxybenzone. Oxybenzone is a UV blocker that is added to many cosmetics and many products that we commonly use. One of the main products that this chemical is extensively used in, is actually sunscreens. We discovered that oxybenzone was highly lethal to coral larvae. A single drop of oxybenzone in an Olympic swimming pool is enough to be lethal to corals. We discovered that oxybenzone is present in other products and not just sunscreen. Oxybenzone was also added to shampoos, soaps and all other detergents just to keep them nice and white so they wouldn't get this yellowish tint."
"Besides damaging corals, oxybenzone was also damaging the DNA of the corals which was very alarming. It also has the capacity to damage the DNA of other organisms including humans. Sunscreen is great for protecting us from skin cancer and the sun, but what if at the same time it is giving us a different kind of cancer? As a result of our research the public is now aware of this information and there are safe products to use for sun protection and the environment that are oxybenzone free."
I asked Dr. Bronstein to describe his role as curator of marine invertebrates at the Steinhardt Museum.
"In museums, we collect, classify and restore all life on earth. At the Steinhardt Museum we collect different types of specimens which means we hold the key to identify species. "
"We collect these specimens over time. Our collection consists of the current findings as well as the historical records from the past. In a way this becomes a time capsule. Every month this year I have collected samples and describe the reproductive cycle of that species. Then I will wait for 50 years, and I will run the same experiment again. I will go to the same site and I will collect specimens monthly, and I will track the new reproductive cycle, and I will compare the 2022 and 2072 cycle."
I asked Dr. Bronstein to express the purpose for having the TAU conference in Miami?
"In a way it was like meeting a very big family. It actually showcases our research in a non-scientific language, therefore allowing you to comprehend what we are doing. The conference showed the strength of the university in terms of diversity and excellence; developing new drugs, treating cancer, taking care of our planet, is part of the work that is done at Tel Aviv University. There's nothing a scientist appreciates more than an audience that is interested in what we do. Engaging with the audience was wonderful. I don't think you choose to be a scientist. I think this job chooses you. You are born into that career and there's nothing else that you can or want to do."
In concluding our conversation, I asked Dr. Bronstein to talk about the dead fish we saw in the bay during an excursion he led.
"As I said during my presentation, our environment is suffering and we need to take action. When we were on the boat, people asked me what's killing the fish? I responded, that it's a result of a very tragic chain of events that actually started from the latest hurricane that hit Florida. The way that it works is that with the hurricane comes a lot of rain. The rain creates what we call runoff. It's just water that is washed from our streets and fields. This brings a lot of pollution to the oceans. What is actually happening is that the fish that we saw there dying actually suffocated. Through the process of decomposition by bacteria, huge amounts of oxygen are actually consumed lowering amounts of oxygen in our oceans and causing all these fish to suffocate and die."
"We only have one planet and we have a lot of work to do."