The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative has announced grants totaling $38 million in support of research on the effects of oil spills on public health and the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem.

The fifth round of grants awarded by GoMRI, a ten-year research program established with a $500 million commitment from BP following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, will support studies across the program's five thematic areas: the physical distribution, dispersion, and dilution of petroleum, its constituents, and associated contaminants; their chemical evolution and biological degradation and subsequent interaction with ecosystems; their environmental effects on the sea floor, coastal waters, beach sediments, wetlands, and organisms and the science of ecosystem recovery; technology developments for improved response, mitigation, detection, characterization, and remediation; and the behavioral, socioeconomic, and environmental impact of oil spills on public health.

Recipients include the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Florida State University, the National Marine Mammal Foundation, the University of Maryland, and Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

"The Research Board was impressed with the quality of the two hundred and eighty-eight applications received," said Rita Colwell, chair of the GoMRI Research Board. "We are gaining an important understanding of how the Gulf of Mexico functions as an ecosystem and responds to large-scale environmental stresses like that caused by the tragic Macondo wellhead blowout."

For more information on the funded projects, visit the GoMRI website.