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‘Tug of War’ Among Skin Cells Key to Development of Chicken Feathers
Sanjay Kumar, a Berkeley Lab faculty scientist in Biological Systems and Engineering (BSE), and Elena Kassianidou, a graduate student working in his lab, are co-authors on a UC Berkeley-led study published in the journal Science which for the first time linked mechanical forces acting on skin cells in a developing organism to the activation of specific genes that make the cells differentiate into more specialized types, such feathers. The researchers grew skin taken from week-old chicken eggs on artificial substrates generated by Kumar and Kassianidou to mimic the stiffness of tissues that underlie the skin in the bird. The work could pave…
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DOE Renews Funding for Joint BioEnergy Institute at Berkeley Lab
The Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), led by Berkeley Lab, is one of four DOE Bioenergy Research Centers to receive funding in support of innovative research on biofuels and bioproducts. The four centers will receive a total of $40 million. The award marks the next research phase at JBEI, originally established in 2007. Read more in the Berkeley Lab News Center.
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Epigenetic Effects of ‘Genomic Parasites’ Impact Their Evolution
In a study published in eLife, Biological Systems and Engineering (BSE) postdoctoral researcher Grace Lee and senior scientist Gary Karpen investigated the extent to which transposons—bits of DNA that copy themselves and jump to other locations in the genome—harm organisms through epigenetic means, such as changing the way DNA is packaged in cells, and whether this influences how transposons evolve. In a Q&A with the journal, Lee explained the background of the research, the specific question she and Karpen were interested in, and the most illuminating result among their findings.
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Brain-Inspired Chips for Big Data Science
With funding from the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program, Berkeley Lab researchers from the Computational Research Division (CRD) and the Biosciences Area are collaborating to explore how brain-inspired computer chips might benefit science.
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A Whole-Genome Sequenced Rice Mutant Resource for the Study of Biofuel Feedstocks
Researchers at the DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), part of the Biological Systems and Engineering (BSE) Division, in collaboration with the Joint Genome Institute (JGI) are reporting the first whole-genome sequenced of a mutant population of Kitaake, a model variety of rice. Their high-density, high-resolution catalog of mutations facilitates the discovery of novel genes and functional elements that control diverse biological pathways. Read the press release at the Berkeley Lab News Center.
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