Oregon Architecture and Biology Researchers to Probe Indoors

Newswise — Two University of Oregon biologists and a professor of architecture will lead a scientific journey into what may be the most underexplored frontier on the planet -- the closed, indoor environment where people in industrialized countries spend an estimated 90 percent of their time.

Their vision, part of a national research center funded by a $1.8 million grant from the New York City-based Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is to develop a new science that focuses on the microbial ecology of indoor environments. The research effort, which will involve students studying the interface of biology and architecture, will be done under the umbrella of the new Biology and the Built Environment (BioBE) Center at the UO.

"One of the most exciting things we'll be doing is collaborating across biology and architecture to answer questions that have never been raised before," said BioBE Center Director Jessica Green, a UO professor of biology who also holds three degrees in civil and nuclear engineering.

The big question, said Green and BioBE Center co-investigators G.Z. "Charlie" Brown and Brendan Bohannan, is how is human health is impacted by both pathogenic and beneficial microorganisms inside of buildings.

“We are pleased to support the work of an outstanding group of scientists to accelerate scientific discovery in an important and understudied field of interdisciplinary scientific inquiry," said Paul L. Joskow, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “Dr. Green has put together a first-class interdisciplinary team of researchers, one that promises to shed new light on one of the most unexplored areas in modern ecology.”