MBIB News

A team led by Paul Adams, director of Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging Division, developed the Phenix software suite, now used around the world to automate key steps in the structural biology workflow. Adams spoke with the Strategic Communications about the software’s origins and how structural biologists leapt into action to combat the pandemic.

As part of Berkeley Lab’s 90th Anniversary, we’re reflecting back in history on all that has been accomplished in biological sciences; talking in the present with Associate Laboratory Director for Biosciences, Mary Maxon; and looking forward to the future with project scientist Nathalie Elisabeth in the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division.

Carlos Bustamante, a biophysicist faculty scientist in the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division, received the 2021 Kazuhiko Kinosita Award during the Biophysical Society’s 65th Annual Meeting in February.

Researchers from Berkeley Lab, UC Berkeley, and Caltech devised a more efficient way to collect “high-dimensional” infrared images, where each pixel contains rich physical and chemical information. The new technique, implemented at the Advanced Light Source’s (ALS) infrared beamline 1.4, uses a grid-less, adaptive approach that autonomously increases sampling in areas displaying greater physical or chemical contrast. With the new method, scans that would’ve taken up to 10 hours to complete can now be done in under an hour.

In PNAS, a research team led by Sabeeha Merchant at UC Berkeley has found numerous examples of polycistronic expression – in which two or more genes are encoded on a single molecule of mRNA – in two species of green algae. Go here to watch a video about the work.