The Sahel region in West Africa is highly vulnerable to drought, endangering the livelihood of millions of millet subsistence farmers in the region. However, a solution has been revealed; when farmers grown millet in close proximity with native woody shrub gueira, the millet has greater biomass and yields. We predict that the millet-associated microbial community is influenced by the shrub such that the microbes are able to confer better drought resistance to their host millet in the presence of the shrub. We will characterize the metagenomes of millet to test this hypothesis.
A Step Toward Controlling Soybean Rust
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…
Meet a JGI Postdoc: Ping-Hung Hsieh
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…
Meet a JGI Postdoc: Ritesh Mewalal
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…
Meet a JGI Postdoc: Kyle Hartman
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…
Meet a JGI Postdoc: Sara Calhoun
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:…
What Happens Underground Influences Global Nutrient Cycles
DOE user facilities EMSL and JGI announce FY 2020 collaborative FICUS projects. Through the Facilities Integrating Collaborations for User Science (FICUS) program, two Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science national user facilities—the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) and the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI)—have selected 11 proposals for support from 53 received through a…
Scaling Up Existing Skill Sets
Over the course of the summer, the JGI-UC Merced Genomics Internship paired six UC Merced students with seven JGI researchers for bioinformatics internship opportunities in fields ranging from plant-microbe interactions to functional genomics. Hear from five of the Summer 2019 interns, who briefly shared their experiences below. Name: Noelle Anderson Class Year: At the…
Game On: High School Students Drive Everglades Metagenomics Study
In late June, Kathleen Lail, a member of JGI’s Sample Management Group, attended a conference in Florida to discuss a JGI pilot project involving soil sampling in the Florida Everglades to help train the next generation of scientists. She shares her thoughts about the experience below. In the summer of 2018, Jonathan Benskin was preparing…
Fungus Fuels Tree Growth
A better understanding of how poplar responds to endophyte associations with endophytes enables scientists to fine-tune their engineering efforts.