US Patent Issued to University of South Florida on Sept. 22 for "Method of controlling bioluminescence in red tide algae" (Florida Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 24 -- United States Patent no. 12,740,570, issued on Sept. 22, was assigned to University of South Florida (Tampa, Fla.).

"Method of controlling bioluminescence in red tide algae" was invented by Aidan McFarland (Plant City, Fla.) and Libin Ye (Lutz, Fla.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A novel method of reducing dinoflagellate algae blooms that cause red tide is disclosed. Aggregation of dinoflagellate algae, such as Lingulodinium polyedra (L. polyedra), can cause algae blooms contributing to "red tide". Bioluminescence emitting from these algae reduce copepod predation of the algae thus increasing the formation of large algae blooms. By inhibiting BIR1, bioluminescence...