Scientists have for the first time reengineered a building block of a geometric nanocompartment that occurs naturally in bacteria. The new design provides an entirely new functionality that greatly expands the potential for these compartments to serve as custom-made chemical factories. The work was led by Cheryl Kerfeld, who holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging Division, UC Berkeley and the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory at Michigan State University. Markus Sutter, a senior research associate in Kerfeld’s group at Berkeley Lab, collected the X-ray diffraction data used in this study in the Berkeley Center for Structural Biology at the Advanced Light Source. Read more at the Berkeley Lab News Center.
Celniker Recognized with 2016 George W. Beadle Award
Susan Celniker, Senior Scientist and Deputy Director of the Environmental Genomics & Systems Biology Division, has been honored as the recipient of the 2016 George W. Beadle Award for her outstanding contributions to the Drosophila community, in both research and service. This award was established by the Genetics Society of America (GSA) in 1999 to honor Beadle (1903–1989) who served as the President of GSA in 1946 and was a respected academic, administrator, and public servant. Celniker will be presented with this award at The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC), July 13–17, 2016, in Orlando, Florida. Read more on GSA’s blog, Genes to Genomes.
Biosciences Area Scientists Participate in World Economic Forum
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.
Breaking the Xylose Bottleneck
Xylose utilization remains the primary bottleneck in fully using the renewable plant biomass. In a Nature Scientific Reports paper entitled, “Evolved hexose transporter enhances xylose uptake and glucose/xylose co-utilization in Saccharomyces cerevisiae,” Biological Systems & Engineering Division researchers at Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) Amanda Reider Apel and Aindrila Mukhopadhyay report the discovery and characterization of a yeast sugar transporter variant with superior Vmax (uptake rates) for xylose. This discovery will be valuable in developing biomanufacturing strains that can use the full set of sugars generated from plant biomass. Read more on the JBEI website.
Scientists Discover Protein’s Starring Role in Genome Stability, and Possibly Cancer Prevention
If you have a soft spot for unsung heroes, you’ll love a DNA repair protein called XPG. Berkeley Lab scientists discovered that XPG plays a previously unknown and critical role helping to maintain genome stability in human cells. Their findings also raise the possibility that the protein helps prevent breast, ovarian, and other cancers associated with defective BRCA genes.
The work, which is published online January 28 in the journal Molecular Cell, indicates XPG is essential to our health in ways far beyond it’s been given credit for.
Priscilla Cooper of the Biological Systems and Engineering Division conducted the research with Kelly Trego and several others at Berkeley Lab, as well as scientists from Colorado State University, Yale University, and Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands. Read more at the Berkeley Lab News Center.
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