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.
More »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.
In a town hall meeting on June 28, Laboratory Director Mike Witherell announced that Biosciences Associate Lab Director Jay Keasling has agreed to take on an important new role as Chief Science and Technology Officer (CSTO) for the Biosciences Area, and Mary Maxon, currently the principal deputy for Biosciences, will replace Keasling as ALD for Biosciences, effective July 1, 2017.
Associate Laboratory Director for Biosciences Jay Keasling has been selected as the 2017 recipient of the Amgen Biochemical and Molecular Engineering award, to be presented July 19 at the 20th Conference on Biochemical and Molecular Engineering in Newport Beach, Calif. The award, given in memory of metabolic engineering pioneer James E. “Jay” Bailey, recognizes research excellence and leadership.
In a paper published June 21 in the journal Nature, Berkeley Lab Biological Systems and Engineering Division researchers Amy Strom and Gary Karpen provide evidence that liquid-liquid phase separation in the nucleus of cells plays an important role in how genes are regulated to be silenced or expressed. They observed that heterochromatin—an unusual part of DNA that generally must be silenced for cells to function properly—is sequestered in droplets that fuse together just like two drops of oil surrounded by water. Understanding this mechanism could open up a third of the genome that was previously inaccessible to genome manipulation and gene therapy, Karpen said. Read more in the News Center release.
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