Antioch High School juniors practiced their job application skills on February 26 during mock interviews held at LBL’s Biosciences Emery Station Operations Center (ESOC). The students, who are taking part in the Biotech Partners program, are getting ready for their interviews in order to get summer internships. The ESOC operations staff was on hand to … Read more »
Aymerick Eudes and Dominique Loqué of the Joint Bioenergy Institute (JBEI) led a study that shows for the first time that an enzyme can be tweaked to reduce lignin in plants. Their technique could help lower the cost of converting biomass into carbon-neutral fuels to power your car and other sustainably developed bio-products. The crystal structure of this enzyme was solved using data collected in the Berkeley Center for Structural Biology at the Advanced Light Source. Read more on the Berkeley Lab News Center.
New Biosynthesis Pathways for Five-Carbon Alcohol from Mevalonate Are Available For Licensing
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have developed two novel biosynthesis pathways for five-carbon alcohol (isopentenol or 3-methyl-3-buten-1-ol) from mevalonate that reduce the energy demand and cost of earlier applications of the mevalonate pathway by using genetically engineered host cells, whose culturing stage can happen both in anaerobic or aerobic conditions. This invention can be used in an industrial scale, even under oxygen-limited conditions. These modified pathways would be a good platform for industrial production of isopentenol which is a potential gasoline alternative and a precursor of commodity chemicals such as isoprene. Read more on the JBEI website.
JBEI’s Post-Doctoral Researcher Sarah Richardson (Biological Systems and Engineering Division) teamed up with Team Escamilla at Tumble to record a science podcast for children ages 8 – 12, created to be enjoyed by the entire family. In this podcast episode Richardson explains how she’s trying to convince bacteria to make the things we need, such as biofuels. To listen click here. To learn more about Sarah’s research area and her outreach work click here.
Faculty biochemist Jennifer Doudna and Biosciences Area Associate Laboratory Director Jay Keasling attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, to bring their unique perspectives to world leaders. Both researchers were named to Al Aribya’s “45 top scientists at Davos you should know about” list.
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