A new effort at the University of Washington aims to accelerate eDNA research by supporting existing projects and building a network of practitioners to advance the nascent field. Called the eDNA Collaborative, the team is based in the College of the Environment with leadership and program staff from the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs.

For about a decade, scientists have honed the craft of using genetic material in the environment — known as eDNA — to detect and monitor organisms for environmental science and conservation. In a marine environment, for example, scientists can collect water samples from a specific location, then extract DNA to discern which species were present recently in that area, having never seen the animals themselves.

This bit of molecular wizardry is now becoming routine for scientists — even prompting a commitment from the U.S. Navy to use eDNA to map the locations of marine mammals — and the eDNA Collaborative aims to help the technique make the leap into everyday use for people and governments everywhere.

But adopting new technologies requires building familiarity and trust, and this is where the eDNA Collaborative comes in. The Collaborative’s director, Ryan Kelly, a UW professor of marine and environmental affairs, likened the young field of eDNA research to how various new technologies develop and take off.

“Experimentation is how technologies develop, and as with the early days of any new tech, it’s a soup of ideas with eDNA research,” Kelly said. “While people are still inventing, we don’t want to impose standards in a top-down way. We want to encourage best practices without squelching creativity. That’s what this Collaborative will help do: accelerate the field from the bottom up.”

The initiative will focus on three main areas: Supporting existing eDNA research projects at UW; granting seed money to new eDNA research ventures outside the UW and the United States; and supporting a visiting scholar program to connect eDNA practitioners and encourage networking and information-sharing. The goal is to move more of the techniques developed in the lab out into practice in the field, helping the best ideas rise to the surface faster.