MBIB News

A team of researchers led by Cheryl Kerfeld, faculty affiliate in the Environmental Genomics & Systems Biology (EGSB) Division, have developed a new method to manipulate miniature factories found in bacteria that could someday lead to new medical, industrial, or energy applications. The factories, called bacterial microcompartments – or BMCs – are found in bacteria all over the world.

Two scientists from the Biosciences Area, Sung-Hou Kim and Susannah Tringe, have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). They join fellow Lab scientists Allen Goldsten, faculty scientist in the Energy Technologies Area, and Kathy Yelick, associate laboratory director of Computing Sciences, in receiving the distinction of Fellow this year for “their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.”

Berkeley Lab researchers, in collaboration with scientists from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the Max Planck Institute, have demonstrated that fluctuation X-ray scattering is capable of capturing the behavior of biological systems in unprecedented detail. Although this technique was first proposed more than four decades ago, its implementation was hindered by the lack of sufficiently powerful X-ray sources and associated detector technology, sample delivery methods, and the means to analyze the data. The team developed a novel mathematical and data analyses framework that was applied to data obtained from DOE’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at SLAC. This breakthrough was recently reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Robert Glaeser, senior scientist in the Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging Division, was awarded the Glenn T. Seaborg Medal by the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). At a symposium held on November 1o, Glaeser and Richard Henderson, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 2017, were recognized for their “crucial contributions to the science of electron cryo-microscopy.”

Bacteria deploy various biological mechanisms to fend off their competition, which are often other bacteria. In some cases, they secrete toxins in their fight for survival. A newly discovered toxin stands out from others in the battle for microbial domination. Marc Allaire, Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division researcher, worked with a team led by Joseph Mougous of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and University of Washington School of Medicine, to characterize this new toxin.