BSE News

To see biochemist Ee-Been Goh in the lab today, figuring out how to rewire bacteria to produce biofuels, one would never guess she was once so uninterested in school that she barely made it through junior high. Today she is a project scientist at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), a Department of Energy Bioenergy Research Center led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Read more at Berkeley Lab News Center.

Currently in its ninth year of operation, JBEI has made remarkable scientific progress toward the development of renewable bioenergy solutions. Fundamental to JBEI’s mission is also its commitment to preparing the next generation of scientists, promoting the benefits of biofuels and expanding broad interest in science. In light of this commitment, JBEI has debuted nine short videos in a series entitled “Bioenergy Research @ JBEI”. To watch the videos visit JBEI’s YouTube channel.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Lab-Corps program has announced a second round of training for entrepreneurial teams at the national labs. Lab-Corps aims to accelerate the transfer of clean energy technologies from the national labs to the marketplace by training and empowering national lab researchers to successfully transition their discoveries into high-impact, real world technologies in the private sector. The training which involves 14 project teams from seven DOE national labs began this week in Golden, Colorado. The rigorous seven-week training follows the path of a typical start-up accelerator.

Women’s History Month is an annual declared month, celebrated in March that highlights the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society. The 2016 theme honors women who have shaped America’s history and its future through their public service and government leadership. LBL’s Biosciences Emery Station Operations Center (ESOC) is celebrating the occasion with a number of activities for its staff and local students.

The public can learn how to use this free DNA/strains/seeds repository

JBEI’s Inventory of Composable Elements (ICE) is a cloud-based freely open-source DNA part, plasmid, microbial strain, and Arabidopsis seed repository with physical sample tracking capabilities. It includes features such as DNA sequence editing and annotation, auto-aligning sequencing trace files against reference templates, SBOL XML/RDF support, and web-of-registries functionality. An ICE tutorial by Nathan Hillson, JBEI’s Director of Synthetic Biology Informatics is now available online. Read more on the JBEI website.