“What is not known are the genes or the proteins that allow these bacteria to mediate the transformation,” said ORNL’s Steven Brown, who led a research team to sequence the genome of a bacterium in the Desulfovibrio genus that is capable of methylating mercury. The new genome, sequenced at the California-based DOE Joint Genome Institute…
Brown mercury-producing bacterium in ScienceDaily
Desulfovibrio desulfuricans strain ND132 is an organism that thrives in sediments and soils without oxygen — the places in lakes, streams and wetlands where mercury contamination is converted to methylmercury. It is representative of a group of organisms that “breathe” sulfate instead of oxygen and are largely responsible for mercury methylation in nature. “This is…
ORNL collaboration to understand methylmercury production
Mercury pollution in aquatic environments has been a concern, though the contaminants are mainly sourced from industrial processes and fossil fuel combustion. Isolated from Chesapeake Bay sediment, the sulfate-reducing bacterium, Desulfovibriodesulfuricansstrain ND132, can also produce the human neurotoxin methylmercury. “What is not known are the genes or the proteins that allow these bacteria to mediate…
Cheryl Kerfeld presents ASBMB award lecture
Cheryl A. Kerfeld, a structural biologist and the head of the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute’s Education and Structural Genomics Programs, has won the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s Award for Exemplary Contributions to Education. Kerfeld will present her award lecture, titled “Sequence and Consequence,” at 12:30 p.m. on April 10…
DOE JGI’s Cheryl Kerfeld among 2011 ASBMB awardees in Washington DC
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…
Fungal Genomics blog re DOE JGI User Meeting
Personally, my favorite talk at the last 6th Annual DOE JGI Users Meeting at Walnut Creek was Rob Knight‘s contribution on ‘Spatially and Temporally Resolved Studies of the Human Microbiome‘. Rob was creative and integrative. Displaying the biogeography of bacterial communities on the human body using UniFrac and QUIME was astounding. Read more at the…
Eisen blogs Twitter wrap-up of the DOE JGI User Meeting
Off to another meeting so don’t have time to write up details of the JGI User Meeting that just ended. But I am posting my tweets and some related tweets here. Also, apparently videos of the talks will be available soon. Will try to clean up the style of the posts ASAP but on the…
Finding cellulases in sediment from a paper mill
During the DOE JGI User Meeting held in Walnut Creek, Calif. from March 22-24, 2011, collaborator Daniel Distel noted that more than 20 enzymes are needed to break down cellulose. To assist in identifying novel cellulose degraders and thus improve cellulosic biofuel production processes, a team of DOE JGI researchers including Microbial Program head TanjaWoyke…
Tasmanian devils at DOE JGI User Meeting in GenomeWeb
As part of the large-scale conservation effort he calls “Project Ark,” Schuster and his team intend to genotype hundreds of Tasmanian devils, he told attendees of the sixth annual Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute User Meeting held in Walnut Creek, Calif., this week. To date, he said, devil tumor facial disease does not seem…
Alfred University selected for DOE JGI Undergraduate Research Program in Microbial Genome Annotation
Alfred University is one of only 21 institutions in the country to be selected for the federal Joint Genome Institution (JGI) Undergraduate Research Program in Microbial Genome Collaboration. What that means, explains Jean Cardinale, professor of biology in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, is Alfred University students will have a unique opportunity to…