Biosciences News

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.

Biosciences researchers will contribute their expertise to two new projects, “Data Analytics at the Exascale for Free Electron Lasers” and “Exascale Solutions for Microbiome Analysis,” funded by DOE to develop cutting-edge research applications for next-generation supercomputers as part of DOE’s Exascale Computing Project (ECP), a component of President Obama’s National Strategic Computing Initiative that intends to maximize the benefits of high-performance computing for U.S. economic competiveness, national security and scientific discovery. ECP announced its first round of funding on September 7 with the selection of 15 application development proposals for full funding and seven proposals for seed funding.

For a second year, JBEI collaborated with the Bay Area Science Festival, the largest science education event in the Bay Area. JBEI organized on October 27 an Explorer Day for the public which included a tour of its labs, and on November 5 JBEI’s volunteers participated at BASF’s closing event, the Discovery Day at AT&T Park. JBEI organized a number of activities to help raise awareness about the benefits of biofuels. Read more on the JBEI website.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) in collaboration with Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Genomics & Systems Biology Division and the DOE Joint Genome Institute developed a versatile system (named jStack) which utilizes yeast homologous recombination to efficiently assemble DNA into plant transformation vectors. The new approach will impact plant engineering for the bioenergy, agricultural and pharmaceutical industries.

Scientists and software engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have developed a new -omics visualization tool, Arrowland, which combines different realms of functional genomics data in a single intuitive interface. The aim of this system is to provide scientists an easier way to navigate the ever-growing amounts of biological data generated by the postgenomic revolution. JBEI researchers hope that Arrowland will make it far easier for scientists to reach their next “a-ha!” moment in scientific discovery.