MBIB News

Plant biologists have bumped up crop productivity by increasing the expression of genes that result in more efficient use of light in photosynthesis, a finding that could be used to help address the world’s future food needs. Scientists in the Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division at Berkeley Lab, the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), and the University of Illinois targeted three genes involved in a process plants use to protect themselves from damage when they get more light than they can safely use. By increasing the expression of those genes, the scientists saw increases of 14-20 percent in the productivity of modified tobacco plants in field experiments. MBIB Faculty Scientist Kris Niyogi, who is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and a UC Berkeley professor of plant and microbial biology, teamed up with Stephen Long, a plant biology and crop sciences professor at Illinois, for the Science study. Read more at the Berkeley Lab News Center.

Scientists in the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging Division (MBIB) have produced detailed 3-D visualizations that show an unexpected connectivity in the genetic material at the center of cells, providing a new understanding of a cell’s evolving architecture. A team of researchers, led by Carolyn Larabell, MBIB faculty scientist and professor at UCSF, have mapped the reorganization of genetic material that takes place when a stem cell matures into a nerve cell using X-ray imaging tools in the National Center for X-ray Tomography at the Advanced Light Source. The results could help us understand how patterning and reorganization of DNA-containing material called chromatin in a cell’s nucleus relate to a cell’s specialized function as specific genes are activated or silenced. Read more at the Berkeley Lab News Center.

In two American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) award essays published in the society’s journal Molecular Biology of the Cell, Mina Bissell, distinguished scientist in the Biological Systems & Engineering Division, and Eva Nogales, faculty structural biologist in the Molecular Biologist in the Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging Division, each candidly describe their inspiring, personal journeys.

In a new study, faculty scientist Mohammad Mofrad from the Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging Division, together with his Ph.D. student Mohammad Soheilypour, shed light on a complex system of cell regulation that acts as a form of quality control for the transport of genetic information out of the nucleus. Getting a more complete picture of how genetic information gets expressed in cells is important in disease research, the researchers say.

“Some components of this machinery are dysregulated in various types of cancers,” explains Mofrad. “Understanding the molecular mechanism of genetic information transport and quality control would substantially improve the current knowledge about various types of cancers and other human diseases.” Their findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports of November 2. Read the full story on the Berkeley Lab News Center.

The Compact Dynamic Beamstop (CDBS), a compact, customizable tool for X-ray scattering experiments providing real-time data, developed by Diane Bryant and Simon Morton of the Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging Division, has been recognized with a 2016 R&D 100 Award. It was one of 100 technologies and services introduced last year deemed most significant by an independent panel of judges.

R&D Magazine‘s R&D 100 Awards, established 54 years ago, presented this year’s awards at the November 3 annual black-tie awards dinner in Washington, D.C. Four other technologies developed by researchers at Berkeley Lab­ were among the awardees, including enabling energy-saving cool roofs, long-lived lithium-sulfur batteries, safer drinking water, and reduced carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Read more at the Berkeley Lab News Center.