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    Designer DNA: JGI Helps Users Blaze New Biosynthetic Pathways
    In a special issue of the journal Synthetic Biology, JGI scientific users share how they’ve worked with the JGI DNA Synthesis Science Program and what they’ve discovered through their collaborations.

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    A genetic element that generates targeted mutations, called diversity-generating retroelements (DGRs), are found in viruses, as well as bacteria and archaea. Most DGRs found in viruses appear to be in their tail fibers. These tail fibers – signified in the cartoon by the blue virus’ downward pointing ‘arms’— allow the virus to attach to one cell type (red), but not the other (purple). DGRs mutate these ‘arms,’ giving the virus opportunities to switch to different prey, like the purple cell. (Courtesy of Blair Paul)
    A Natural Mechanism Can Turbocharge Viral Evolution
    A team has discovered that diversity generating retroelements (DGRs) are not only widespread, but also surprisingly active. In viruses, DGRs appear to generate diversity quickly, allowing these viruses to target new microbial prey.

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    Algae growing in a bioreactor. (Dennis Schroeder, NREL)
    Refining the Process of Identifying Algae Biotechnology Candidates
    Researchers combined expertise at the National Labs to screen, characterize, sequence and then analyze the genomes and multi-omics datasets for algae that can be used for large-scale production of biofuels and bioproducts.

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    This data image shows the monthly average sea surface temperature for May 2015. Between 2013 and 2016, a large mass of unusually warm ocean water--nicknamed the blob--dominated the North Pacific, indicated here by red, pink, and yellow colors signifying temperatures as much as three degrees Celsius (five degrees Fahrenheit) higher than average. Data are from the NASA Multi-scale Ultra-high Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (MUR SST) Analysis product. (Courtesy NASA Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center)
    When “The Blob” Made It Hotter Under the Water
    Researchers tracked the impact of a large-scale heatwave event in the ocean known as “The Blob” as part of an approved proposal through the Community Science Program.

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    A plantation of poplar trees. (David Gilbert)
    Genome Insider podcast: THE Bioenergy Tree
    The US Department of Energy’s favorite tree is poplar. In this episode, hear from ORNL scientists who have uncovered remarkable genetic secrets that bring us closer to making poplar an economical and sustainable source of energy and materials.

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    Ian Rambo, graduate student at UT-Austin, was a DOE Graduate Student Research Fellow at the JGI
    Virus-Microbe Interactions of Mud Island Mangroves
    Through the DOE Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program, Ian Rambo worked on part of his dissertation at the JGI. The chapter focuses on how viruses influence carbon cycling in coastal mangroves.

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    HPCwire Editor's Choice Award (logo crop) for Best Use of HPC in the Life Sciences
    JGI Part of Berkeley Lab Team Awarded Best Use of HPC in Life Sciences
    The HPCwire Editors Choice Award for Best Use of HPC in Life Sciences went to the Berkeley Lab team comprised of JGI and ExaBiome Project team, supported by the DOE Exascale Computing Project for MetaHipMer, an end-to-end genome assembler that supports “an unprecedented assembly of environmental microbiomes.”

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    With a common set of "baseline metadata," JGI users can more easily access public data sets. (Steve Wilson)
    A User-Centered Approach to Accessing JGI Data
    Reflecting a structural shift in data access, the JGI Data Portal offers a way for users to more easily access public data sets through a common set of metadata.

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    Phytozome portal collage
    A More Intuitive Phytozome Interface
    Phytozome v13 now hosts upwards of 250 plant genomes and provides users with the genome browsers, gene pages, search, BLAST and BioMart data warehouse interfaces they have come to rely on, with a more intuitive interface.

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    screencap from Amundson and Wilkins subsurface microbiome video
    Digging into Microbial Ecosystems Deep Underground
    JGI users and microbiome researchers at Colorado State University have many questions about the microbial communities deep underground, including the role viral infection may play in other natural ecosystems.

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    Yeast strains engineered for the biochemical conversion of glucose to value-added products are limited in chemical output due to growth and viability constraints. Cell extracts provide an alternative format for chemical synthesis in the absence of cell growth by isolating the soluble components of lysed cells. By separating the production of enzymes (during growth) and the biochemical production process (in cell-free reactions), this framework enables biosynthesis of diverse chemical products at volumetric productivities greater than the source strains. (Blake Rasor)
    Boosting Small Molecule Production in Super “Soup”
    Researchers supported through the Emerging Technologies Opportunity Program describe a two-pronged approach that starts with engineered yeast cells but then moves out of the cell structure into a cell-free system.

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    These bright green spots are fluorescently labelled bacteria from soil collected from the surface of plant roots. For reference, the scale bar at bottom right is 10 micrometers long. (Rhona Stuart)
    A Powerful Technique to Study Microbes, Now Easier
    In JGI's Genome Insider podcast: LLNL biologist Jennifer Pett-Ridge collaborated with JGI scientists through the Emerging Technologies Opportunity Program to semi-automate experiments that measure microbial activity in soil.

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    In their approved proposal, Frederick Colwell of Oregon State University and colleagues are interested in the microbial communities that live on Alaska’s glacially dominated Copper River Delta. They’re looking at how the microbes in these high latitude wetlands, such as the Copper River Delta wetland pond shown here, cycle carbon. (Courtesy of Rick Colwell)
    Monitoring Inter-Organism Interactions Within Ecosystems
    Many of the proposals approved through JGI's annual Community Science Program call focus on harnessing genomics to developing sustainable resources for biofuels and bioproducts.

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    Coloring the water, the algae Phaeocystis blooms off the side of the sampling vessel, Polarstern, in the temperate region of the North Atlantic. (Katrin Schmidt)
    Climate Change Threatens Base of Polar Oceans’ Bountiful Food Webs
    As warm-adapted microbes edge polewards, they’d oust resident tiny algae. It's a trend that threatens to destabilize the delicate marine food web and change the oceans as we know them.

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    Integrating JGI Capabilities for Exploring Earth’s Secondary Metabolome
    Natural Prodcast podcast: Nigel Mouncey
    JGI Director Nigel Mouncey has a vision to build out an integrative genomics approach to looking at the interactions of organisms and environments. He also sees secondary metabolism analysis and research as a driver for novel technologies that can serve all JGI users.

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Home › About Us › People › The JGI Leadership Team › Axel Visel
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Axel Visel

Axel Visel, Deputy of Science Programs, DOE Joint Genome Institute

Dr. Visel joined the DOE Joint Genome Institute in 2010.  As the Deputy for Science Programs, he focuses on the development and implementation of strategic initiatives at the JGI. Dr. Visel received his Ph.D. in 2004 from the Max Planck Institute in Hanover, Germany, where he developed novel tools for large-scale in situ gene expression analysis in multicellular organisms.  During his postdoctoral training at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, he developed and applied novel computational and experimental sequence-based methods for elucidating the gene regulatory landscape of vertebrate genomes, which led to the discovery of thousands of genetic switches implicated in developmental and disease processes in the human genome.  In addition to his appointment at the DOE Joint Genome Institute, Dr. Visel also holds appointments as a Senior Staff Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and as an Adjunct Professor at the School of Natural Sciences at the University of California, Merced. Dr. Visel also served as JGI Interim Director from March 2016 – March 2017.

Education

  • Ph.D. (Dr. rer. nat.) in Biology, Max Planck Institute, Germany
  • Postdoctoral training, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA

About the JGI Deputy for Science Programs

The Deputy of Science provides direction, leadership, and oversight for all JGI scientific programs. The Deputy of Science is also responsible for formulation and implementation of scientific policy, engaging in interactions with the scientific community at large.

Awards and Honors

2014 LBNL Director’s Award for Exceptional Achievement, 2009 LBNL Outstanding Performance Award, 2006 AHA Lievre Fellowship Award, 2000 Boehringer Ingelheim Fellow.

Reviewer for major funding agencies and journals including National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, Medical Research Council (UK), Nature, Cell, Nature Genetics, Nature Methods, Genome Research (Editorial Board), Cell Reports, Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, PLoS Computational Biology, Nucleic Acids Research.

Over 80 publications in peer-reviewed journals including Nature, Science, Cell, and Nature Genetics.

Selected Publications

  • Ngan CY, Wong CH, Choi C, Yoshinaga Y, Louie K, Jia J, Chen C, Bowen B, Cheng H, Leonelli L, Kuo R, Baran R, García-Cerdán JG, Pratap A, Wang M, Lim J, Tice H, Daum C, Xu J, Northen T, Visel A, Bristow J, Niyogi KK, Wei CL (2015). Lineage-specific chromatin signatures reveal a regulator of lipid metabolism in microalgae. Nature Plants1: 15107
  • Lupiáñez DG, Kraft K, Heinrich V, Krawitz P, Brancati F, Klopocki E, Horn D, Kayserili H, Opitz JM, Laxova R, Santos-Simarro F, Gilbert-Dussardier B, Wittler L, Borschiwer M, Haas SA, Osterwalder M, Franke M, Timmermann B, Hecht J, Spielmann M, Visel A, Mundlos S. (2015). Disruptions of topological chromatin domains cause pathogenic rewiring of gene-enhancer interactions. Cell 161, 1012-25
  • Ivanova NN, Schwientek P, Tripp HJ, Rinke C, Pati A, Huntemann M, Visel A, Woyke T, Kyrpides NC, Rubin EM (2014).  Stop codon reassignments in the wild.  Science344:909-13
  • Nord AS, Blow MJ, Attanasio C, Akiyama JA, Holt A, Hosseini R, Phouanenavong S, Plajzer-Frick I, Shoukry M, Afzal V, Rubenstein JL, Rubin EM, Pennacchio LA*, Visel A* (2013). Rapid and Pervasive Changes in Genome-wide Enhancer Usage during Mammalian Development. Cell 155, 1521-31.
  • Attanasio C, Nord AS, Zhu Y, Blow MJ, Li Z, Liberton DK, Morrison H, Plajzer-Frick I, Holt A, Hosseini R, Phouanenavong S, Akiyama JA, Shoukry M, Afzal V, Rubin EM, FitzPatrick DR, Ren B, Hallgrímsson B, Pennacchio LA, Visel A (2013). Fine tuning of craniofacial morphology by distant-acting enhancers. Science 342, 1241006.
  • Visel A*, Taher L, Girgis H, May D, Golonzhka O, Hoch RV, McKinsey GL, Pattabiraman K, Silberberg SN, Blow MJ, Hansen DV, Nord AS, Akiyama JA, Holt A, Hosseini R, Phouanenavong S, Plajzer-Frick I, Shoukry M, Afzal V, Kaplan T, Kriegstein AR, Rubin EM, Ovcharenko I, Pennacchio LA, Rubenstein JL (2013, * corresponding author). A high-resolution enhancer atlas of the developing telencephalon. Cell 152, 895-908.
  • Gross SM, Martin JA, Simpson J, Abraham-Juarez MJ, Wang Z, Visel A (2013). De novo transcriptome assembly of drought tolerant CAM plants, Agave deserti and Agave tequilana. BMC Genomics 14, 563.
  • May D, Blow MJ, Kaplan T, McCulley DJ, Jensen BC, Akiyama JA, Holt A, Plajzer-Frick I, Shoukry M, Wright C, Afzal V, Simpson PC, Rubin EM, Black BL, Bristow J, Pennacchio LA*, Visel A* (2012). Large-scale discovery of enhancers from human heart tissue. Nature Genetics 44, 89-93.
  • Hess M, Sczyrba A, Egan R, Kim TW, Chokhawala H, Schroth G, Luo S, Clark DS, Chen F, Zhang T, Mackie RI, Pennacchio LA, Tringe SG, Visel A, Woyke T, Wang Z, Rubin EM (2011). Metagenomic discovery of biomass-degrading genes and genomes from cow rumen. Science 331, 463-7.
  • Visel A, Zhu Y, May D, Afzal V, Gong E, Attanasio C, Blow MJ, Cohen JC, Rubin EM, Pennacchio LA (2010). Targeted deletion of the 9p21 non-coding coronary artery disease risk interval in mice. Nature 464, 409-12.
  • Visel A, Blow MJ, Li Z, Zhang T, Akiyama JA, Holt A, Plajzer-Frick I, Shoukry M, Wright C, Chen F, Afzal V, Ren B, Rubin EM, Pennacchio LA (2009). ChIP-seq accurately predicts tissue-specific activity of enhancers. Nature 457, 854-8.

 

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