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Sponge genome project on EurekAlert

All living animals are descended from the common ancestor of sponges and humans, which lived more than 600 million years ago. A sponge-like creature may have been the first organism with more than one cell type and the ability to develop from a fertilized egg produced by the merger of sperm and egg cells.– that… [Read More]

Sponge genome project on UC Newsroom

Four scientists from UC Santa Barbara contributed to the sequencing of the genome of a Great Barrier Reef marine sponge, from a 650 million-year-old group of organisms — a project that indicates there were astonishingly rich genetic resources available at the dawn of the animal kingdom. The sequencing also reveals some basic information about cancer…. [Read More]

Sponge genome project on Edhat

All of the gene sequences were determined at the Joint Genome Institute (JGI) located in Walnut Creek, Calif., and operated by UC for the Department of Energy. In all, 33 scientists contributed to the paper. The lead author, Mansi Srivastava, is based at UC Berkeley’s Center for Integrative Genomics and the Department of Molecular and… [Read More]

Sponge genome project in PhysOrg

The study, published in Nature this week, illustrates how all contemporary animals, from sea sponges and corals to butterflies and humans, evolved from ancient and long-extinct ancestors – the very first multicellular animals. “This incredibly old ancestor possessed the same core building blocks for multicellular form and function that still sits at the heart of… [Read More]

Sponge genome project in New Scientist

Sponges are primitive creatures with a body plan unlike that of any other living organism. They are also our most distant animal cousins. Now that their genetic make-up has finally been sequenced, it could explain one of the greatest mysteries of evolution: how single-celled organisms in the primordial oceans evolved into complex multicellular animals with… [Read More]

Cheryl Kerfeld recognized by ASBMB on EurekAlert

Cheryl A. Kerfeld, a structural biologist and the head of the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute’s Education and Structural Genomics Program, won the ASBMB Award for Exemplary Contributions to Education. Kerfeld, who also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley, was named the winner for encouraging effective teaching and learning… [Read More]

Schizophyllum commune project on Power Online

The DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) previously sequenced and published the genomes of two wood-decaying fungi. Now a team of researchers led by scientists from the DOE JGI and the University of Utrecht announce the analysis of a third such genome in a study published online July 11 in Nature Biotechnology. All told, DOE JGI… [Read More]

Frog genome project on NIH Research Matters

A team of scientists led by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute and the University of California, Berkeley, set out to add to the set of X. tropicalis research tools by sequencing its genome. The team, which included researchers from NIH’s National Library of Medicine (NLM) and National Cancer Institute (NCI), was… [Read More]

Volvox carteri project on Astrobiology magazine

“If you think of proteins in terms of lego bricks, Chlamydomonas already had a great lego set,” says James Umen, assistant professor in the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute. “Volvox didn’t have to buy a new one, and instead could experiment with what it had inherited from its ancestor.”  Read… [Read More]

Volvox carteri project on NCTimes.com Blog

The study was published in the July 9 issue of Science. It may also be pertinent to the ongoing development of algae as a biofuel petroleum replacement, a major focus of research in San Diego and at the federal level. The team compared the genome of Volvox, a multicellular spherical algae, with that of the… [Read More]