EGSB News

The gut microbiome undergoes rapid and dramatic changes in species composition and gene expression when the host switches between eating cooked or raw vegetables, according to a team of scientists led by UC San Francisco and Harvard University. Their new study, published in Nature Microbiology, is the first to investigate how this aspect of diet affects the microbiome, and included experiments in both mice and humans.

In early October, Chris Mungall, who leads the Molecular Ecosystems Biology Department in Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology (EGSB), and members of his group hosted the biannual Gene Ontology Consortium (GOC) meeting.

Several Biosciences Area personnel are among the 2019 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 Director’s Achievement Awards ceremony will take place on November 15 at 4 PM in the Building 50 Auditorium. All staff are invited and the event will be streamed live.

A study aimed at identifying and examining the small messenger proteins used by microbes living on and inside humans has revealed an astounding diversity of more than 4,000 families of molecules – many of which have never been described previously. The research, led by Stanford University and now published in Cell, lays the groundwork for future investigations into how the trillions of bacteria, archaea, and fungi that compose human microbiomes compete for resources, attack and co-exist with one another, and interact with our own cells.

Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) faculty scientist Markita Landry and Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology (EGSB) faculty scientist Niren Murthy are among the seven UC Berkeley faculty named to the 2019-20 cohort of Bakar Fellows. The UCB program fosters faculty entrepreneurship in fields including engineering, computer science, the biological and physical sciences, and architecture. The honor is bestowed on researchers with novel ideas and an entrepreneurial spirit, giving them the money and time to translate their laboratory breakthroughs into technologies ready for the marketplace.