DOE Joint Genome Institute

All JGI Features
Home › Archives for mlballon

Roles of Microbial Communities in the Atacama Desert

The hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert (Chile) is one of the driest deserts on Earth. Its soils represent one of the few environment types that yet have barely been investigated at the level of metagenomics. Due to the extremely low content of biomass these Atacama Desert sediments have been claimed to be Mars-like. We… [Read More]

Exploring Seaweed Genome Diversity

Seaweed represent a 6 billion dollar industry across the world, and are a source of many materials spanning the chemical and food sectors. Understanding how seaweeds construct these molecules will allow us to harness their biosynthetic machinery in the biomanufacturing of fuels, lubricants, polymers, and other commodity and specialty chemicals. To help us understand the… [Read More]

Infections and Host-Pathogen Interactions of Chlorella

The non-photosynthetic, predatory cyanobacterium Vampirovibrio chlorellavorus (Melainabacteria) is a globally important obligate pathogen of Chlorella species/strains of interest as biofuel feedstocks. This project proposes two sequencing approaches to generate information for querying: (i) pathogen and host genomics; and, (ii) the mode of infection and host reaction to infection via transcriptomics); and, (iii) explore evolution and… [Read More]

Nitrate in Coastal Waters

The proposal calls for metagenomic and metatranscriptomics sequencing, and metabolomics analysis from salt marsh sediments exposed to a decade of chronic anthropogenic nitrate enrichment. These sediments are part of a multi-PI research project at the Plum Island LTER where the team has been fertilizing two whole salt marsh creeks since 2004, while maintaining two additional… [Read More]

Fungal Comparative ENCODE Project

The FUNCODE project aims to generate a genome-wide library of the rules that govern gene expression in five important model fungi. The resources generated during the project will support a wide range of basic and applied research and biotechnological and industrial applications of fungi, including an understanding of gene regulatory circuits behind plant waste decomposition… [Read More]

Regulatory Genomics of Brachypodium

This is a proposal to develop the most advanced systems-level understanding of transcriptional regulation of grass growth. Brachypodium distachyon is a model system for the study of energy crops such as sorghum, miscanthus, and switchgrass, and the team’s approach depends on a unique combination of reagents that were developed in collaboration with JGI. The identification… [Read More]

Genome Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea VI

The proposed study will advance the sequencing of the type strains of prokaryotes and initiate the functional genomics of understudied groups. The goal of these studies is to improve our understanding of gene function for a wide variety of prokaryotes. Ultimately, a predictive model of prokaryotic life on earth will be developed to unite gene… [Read More]

Short-Term Temperature Shift at Harvard Forest

Long-term warming results in significant changes in respiration, community structure and microbial processes. The primary goal of this project is to separate molecular changes resulting from long-term warming from temperature effects of gene expression using samples just prior to the power returning and the week afterwards when the soil temperature is again 5°C higher than… [Read More]

Preparing for a Sequence Data Deluge

Accepted 2019 JGI Community Science Program proposals requested terabases of sequence data. Over the summer, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI), a DOE Office of Science User Facility, set an “institutional best” record by sequencing 20.4 trillion bases (Terabases or Tb) in a single month in Walnut Creek, Calif. Given the… [Read More]

JGI Program Manager Dan Drell Retires

For more than a dozen years, Dr. Daniel Drell served as the JGI program manager at the Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER), in the Biological Systems Science Division (BSSD). After 30 years in government service, most of that time with the BER, he retired in September. Before he stepped down, he reflected on… [Read More]