WALNUT CREEK/BERKELEY, Calif.—From the North Pole to the Arctic Ocean, the frozen soils within this region keep an estimated 1,672 billion metric tons of carbon out of the Earth’s atmosphere. This sequestered carbon is more than 250 times the amount of greenhouse gas emissions attributed to the United States in the year 2009. As global…
DOE JGI science in the Washington Post
JGI director and geneticist Eddy Rubin is a pioneer in the field of “metagenomics,” the study of how the DNA in many creatures can work together to create ecosystems. Right now, he and his team are studying microbes that live in a cow’s rumen, the stomach-like organ that the animals use to break down grasses…
A metagenomic approach to analyzing rice endophytes
During the call for 2012 proposals for the DOE JGI’s Community Sequencing Program, one of the areas of focus researchers were asked to consider was that of plant-microbe interactions. Microbes that live in plants or in the rhizosphere where plant roots and soil interact can play crucial roles in plant health. This is of particular…
CSP 2012 announcement in GenomeWeb Daily News
The Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute has chosen 41 research projects out of 152 applicants to use its sequencing services under its 2012 Community Sequencing Program, JGI said Thursday.Researchers for this year’s CSP program, which provides the scientific community with access to JGI’s high-throughput sequencing technologies, proposed projects to study plant-microbe interactions, how microbes…
Trillions Served: Massive, Complex Projects Dominate DOE JGI 2012 Community Sequencing Program Portfolio
WALNUT CREEK, Calif.—According to roadside signs, the number of burgers served has eclipsed the billion mark, while the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI) will now serve up trillions of nucleotides of information from scores of newly-selected projects geared to feed the data-hungry worldwide research community. The 2012 Community Sequencing Program (CSP)…
Tension wood study helps tailors bioenergy feedstock
Researchers focus on tension wood in linking phenotypic and genotypic data to the lignocellulosic challenges presented in converting poplar biomass to sugars for biofuels production.
UV treatments for contaminated MDA reagents
Single cell genomicsis a method used by researchers to get around the research roadblock thrown up by the need for large amounts of microbial DNA in order to do traditional sequencing techniques. In this process, a single cell isolated from an environmental sample is amplified to make millions of copies of the microbial genome…
Berkeley Lab Open House recap on Today at Berkeley Lab
At DOE JGI’s metagenomics of restored wetlands exhibit Most notable among the crowd of thousands was the number of youngsters who were in attendance. Families were enthralled by the terrific science, engineering, and operations efforts presented at the various booths. Read more at Today at Berkeley Lab
Director Rubin on corngrass1 for biofuel
Up to now, the fast-growing switchgrass, because of its tough lignin, an organic polymer, has required heavy chemical treatment before it can be turned to ethanol as biofuel. Chuck’s gene transfer experiments have shown that because the improved switchgrass keeps the plants young, the lignin content of their cells is minimal and would need no…
Fungal enzymes to improve biomass pretreatment processes
Many of the enzymes currently being used in the pretreatment processes for cellulosic biofuels production come from species that thrive at temperatures comfortable to humans (68°F-95°F). To speed up this process of converting polysaccharides to fermentable sugars, a goal driven by the nation’s Renewable Fuels Standard requirement that calls for the annual production of 36…