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Game On: High School Students Drive Everglades Metagenomics Study

In late June, Kathleen Lail, a member of JGI’s Sample Management Group, attended a conference in Florida to discuss a JGI pilot project involving soil sampling in the Florida Everglades to help train the next generation of scientists. She shares her thoughts about the experience below. In the summer of 2018, Jonathan Benskin was preparing… [Read More]

Fungus Fuels Tree Growth

A better understanding of how poplar responds to endophyte associations with endophytes enables scientists to fine-tune their engineering efforts. [Read More]

Panel Discussion: Launching & Sustaining Startups in Synthetic Biology

The Berkeley Lab Biosciences Area Entrepreneurship Program presents… Eyes on the Prize – Launching & Sustaining Startups in Synthetic Biology Who’s Invited? All Berkeley Lab Employees and Affiliates. When: August 29th, 3:00 pm – 5:30 pm 3:00 pm – 4:15 pm: Panel discussion, Q&A followed by: 4:15 pm – 5:30 pm: Hosted Hoppy Hour @… [Read More]

Learning to Look

Machine learning approach significantly expands inovirus diversity. To answer the question, “Where’s Waldo?” readers need to look for a number of distinguishing features. Several characters may be spotted with a striped scarf, striped hat, round-rimmed glasses, or a cane, but only Waldo will have all of these features. As described July 22, 2019, in Nature… [Read More]

Improving the Cacao Genome and Phytozome

According to the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO), global cocoa bean production in 2017-2018 was 4.6 million metric tons. The global chocolate brands couldn’t exist without cocoa.  But today the plant is under threat due to climate change and devastating fungal infections. That’s why Mars, Inc., a maker of chocolate for more than 100 years and… [Read More]

Better Genome Editing for Bioenergy

A team has optimized a crucial part of CRISPR-Cas9 technology to enable improvements in microbial oil production. The Science CRISPR-Cas9 is a powerful, high-throughput gene-editing tool that can help scientists engineer organisms for bioenergy applications. Cas9 needs guide RNA to lead it to the correct sequence to snip — but not all guides are effective…. [Read More]

Cultivating Symbiotic Antarctic Microbes

Nanohaloarchaeota cultures reveal they are symbionts and not free-living organisms. The Science Researchers employed multiple microbiology and ‘omics techniques to experimentally determine that Nanohaloarchaeota are symbionts, rather than free-living organisms as had been originally thought. The Impact The Antarctic lakes are a “treasure trove” of unknown microbes that play critical roles in environmental processes (related… [Read More]

Developing Switchgrass for Biomass Production

Switchgrass community gardens help distinguish genetic bases of fitness traits from climactic influence. The Science To better understand the genetic basis of local adaptation, researchers established community gardens of switchgrass plants in 10 different field sites on a north-south gradient across the United States. Hundreds of the switchgrass plants in these gardens are clonally propagated… [Read More]

Tracking Permafrost Thaw

Notes from the JGI 2019 User Meeting The Arctic peatlands are among the northern ecosystems that collectively store up to half of the planet’s soil carbon. With the frozen peatlands thawing, said Virginia Rich of The Ohio State University, “if we project this out, permafrost is virtually eliminated by the end of the century.” Just… [Read More]

Engaging the Workforce through Tiny Earth

Notes from the JGI 2019 User Meeting Amanda Hurley, a postdoctoral fellow in Jo Handelsman’s lab at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, began her talk with a reminder that pathogens damage 16% of the global crop yield. That number is expected to rise due to climate change. “We need something that tips the scales back in… [Read More]