EGSB News

Microorganisms play key roles in regulating global nutrient cycles but only a small fraction has been identified and an even smaller number has been successfully cultured in a lab for study. In Nature Biotechnology, the known diversity of bacteria and archaea has now expanded by 44% through a publicly available collection of more than 52,000 microbial genomes from environmental samples. Of that number, 70% of the novel genome sequences were previously unknown, not yet cultured in the lab. The work results from a JGI-led collaboration involving more than 200 scientists around the world, KBase and NERSC. Read more about the genomic catalog of Earth’s microbiomes on the JGI website.

A new project co-led by Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division scientist Christopher Mungall has received a $10 million five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to establish a Center of Excellence in Genomic Science (CEGS). An international, multi-institutional collaboration, the new center will develop tools to modernize how biomedical information about genetic conditions is captured, stored, and exchanged.

In a study appearing in Nature Plants, researchers from UC Davis, UC Berkeley, and Berkeley Lab report the discovery and characterization of a previously undescribed lineage of form I rubisco – one that the researchers suspect diverged from form I rubisco prior to the evolution of cyanobacteria. The novel lineage, called form I’ rubisco, gives researchers new insights into the structural evolution of form I rubisco, potentially providing clues as to how this enzyme changed the planet.

The work was led by Patrick Shih, a UC Davis assistant professor and the director of Plant Biosystems Design at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), and Doug Banda, a postdoctoral scholar in his lab.

On January 23, 2020, Berkeley Lab hosted a workshop on opportunities afforded by single-cell technologies for energy and environmental science, as well as conceptual and technological grand challenges that must be tackled to apply these powerful approaches to plants, fungi and algae. This event, which was spearheaded by Diane Dickel in the Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division, brought together a diverse group of leaders in functional genomics technologies from academia, the National Laboratories, and local research institutions.

Numerous Biosciences Area personnel are among the 2020 Berkeley Lab Director’s Awards honorees. This annual program recognizes outstanding contributions by employees to all facets of Lab activities. A complete list of winners can be found here. The ninth annual Director’s Awards ceremony will take place (virtually) on November 12 at 3 PM.