The biophysical effects of deuterium oxide on biomolecules and living cells through open notebook science.

This dissertation explores various effects of deuterium oxide (D2O also known as heavy water) in nature. Water is everywhere and interacts with just about everything. As such, it would be quite a daunting task to characterize every effect that water exhibits on everything in the universe. This research is a small piece of the puzzle, and provides some fundamental understanding of how water interacts with other molecules. This is done from two viewpoints: (1) the effects of heavy water on living cells and (2) the effects of heavy water on molecules. Varying concentrations of deuterium oxide were used as the growing solvent for four different organisms: S. cerevisiae, E. coli, A. thaliana, and N. tabacum. In each case growth rates and morphology was assessed and compared to the wild type. Organisms were surveyed for potential phenotypes exhibited in the presence of extremely low and high concentrations of D2O. In every organism, growth is increasingly inhibited in higher concentrations of D2O compared to lower concentrations of D2O. In the case of tobacco, a root hair phenotype was exhibited in the presence of deuterium depleted water (