Virophages are small viruses with double-stranded DNA genomes that co-infect eukaryotic cells along with giant viruses. Almost all known virophage genomes share only four genes in common: major and minor capsid proteins (MCP and mCP, respectively), ATPase involved in DNA packaging, and PRO, a cysteine protease involved in capsid maturation. Recently reported in Microbiome, researchers… [Read More]

Scientists find bee gut microbes have a division of labor when it comes to metabolizing complex polysaccharides. Honey bees are invaluable pollinators — cupids of the plant world facilitating the remixing of genes in the next generation of flowering vegetation. In return for their services, bees eat plant nectar and pollen. Nectar is an easily… [Read More]

Clarivate Analytics, formerly the IP & Science arm of Thomson Reuters, has released their 2019 list of Highly Cited Researchers, which includes 10 affiliated with the JGI . The 2019 list focused on Highly Cited Papers, defined in the Methodology section as “those that rank in the top 1% by citations for papers published and… [Read More]

JGI is in the process of shifting its operations from Walnut Creek to the heart of the Berkeley Lab campus. By Friday, October 18, the production sequencing labs in Building 100 were silent. Twenty years after the JGI united the genomics expertise of three national labs in one long building at Walnut Creek, after countless… [Read More]

A collaborative team led by Hao Tan from the Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences in China and involving Francis Martin from the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) in France and Igor Grigoriev from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI), a DOE Office of Science User Facility, reported on just… [Read More]

The United States is the world’s leading soybean producer, and soybeans are used to produce biodiesel. The fungus Phakopsora pachyrhizi causes Asian Soybean Rust (ASR) and is the major pathogen of soybean. Left uncontrolled, soybean rust could reduce crop yields by as much as 90 percent. As part of the DOE Joint Genome Institute’s 2016… [Read More]

From September 16-20, 2019, we introduce you to some of the postdocs at the JGI in honor of National Postdoc Appreciation Week, which recognizes the contributions of these early career researchers. Through a series of hard-hitting questions, we find out what drives each one.   What are you working on? My postdoc research in the Synthetic… [Read More]

From September 16-20, 2019, we introduce you to some of the postdocs at the JGI in honor of National Postdoc Appreciation Week, which recognizes the contributions of these early career researchers. Through a series of hard-hitting questions, we find out what drives each one.   What are you working on? Beneficial plant-microbe interactions alter valuable… [Read More]

From September 16-20, 2019, we introduce you to some of the postdocs at the JGI in honor of National Postdoc Appreciation Week, which recognizes the contributions of these early career researchers. Through a series of hard-hitting questions, we find out what drives each one.   What are you working on? I am a member of the… [Read More]

From September 16-20, 2019, we introduce you to some of the postdocs at the JGI in honor of National Postdoc Appreciation Week, which recognizes the contributions of these early career researchers. Through a series of hard-hitting questions, we find out what drives each one.   What are you working on? I have two main projects:… [Read More]