Dr. Michael Gerdes
Dr. Michael Gerdes
Dr. Gerdes holds a PhD in Cell Biology from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX and did his postdoctoral training at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD. He has been issued 27 US patents related to diagnostic technologies for pathology, automation, and image analysis, as well as in the area of human forensics. He has been an adjunct professor at SUNY Albany since 2008 in the Department of Biological Sciences where he teaches and mentors student research. interns.
Dr. Gerdes has been growing corals for 25 years and is passionate about aquaculture and reef conservation as a Jamaican born American. Dr. Gerdes co-founded the Washington Area Marine Aquarist Society (wamas.org) in 2000 and was president from 2000-2005 prior to moving to the Albany, NY area. During this time he organized many speaker meetings for the group with many well-known hobbyists and professionals with an emphasis on sustainability in the aquarium trade.
He is currently focusing his efforts on uses of aquacultured corals for developing biomedical applications and chemical fingerprinting studies for coral health and disease. Additional work is directly aimed at improving restoration efforts with improved approaches for biofouling mitigation in nurseries and out-plant sites.
Check out Dr. Gerdes' references on Google Scholar, or ResearchGate.