Biosciences News

Working at temperatures near absolute zero, scientists at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley have captured images of proteins at work in the early steps of DNA transcription. Eva Nogales, a senior faculty scientist at in the Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging Division, UC Berkeley professor of biochemistry and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator, led the new study, published today in the journal Nature.

This latest research comes seven weeks after Nogales unveiled an earlier milestone using cryo-EM technology to image details of transcription factor TFIID in gene expression. Read the full UC Berkeley press release on the newest Nature paper.

Scientists at JBEI have engineered a strain of bacteria that enables a “one-pot” method for producing advanced biofuels from a slurry of pre-treated plant material. The achievement is a critical step in making biofuels a viable competitor to fossil fuels. Read more at the Berkeley Lab News Center.

Graham R. Fleming, senior scientist in the Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging Division, has won the Royal Chemistry Society’s Faraday Lectureship Prize 2016. The prize was awarded for experimental and theoretical achievements that have redefined the study and understanding of fundamental chemical and photobiological processes in liquids, solutions and proteins. A particular emphasis in Fleming’s research is photosynthetic light harvesting and its regulation via nonphotochemical quenching.

Startup CinderBio, founded by Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging researchers Jill Fuss and Steven Yannone, was recently featured in Newsweek. Giving some background about the use of enzymes throughout history, the article describes how the company offers biodegradable enzymes that operate at higher temperatures and more acidic conditions than currently available enzymes. When used in biofuel production and industrial cleaning, the heat- and acid-tolerant properties of these enzymes allow for more efficient and affordable processes.

Delegates of the US-Australia City Exchange on Innovation Ecosystems, presented by the Future Cities Collaborative, an initiative of the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney visited JBEI on May 5. The delegates from New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia are visiting several cities in the United States to learn how to plan, finance, implement and support innovation districts in their cities. Their first stop was Emeryville. EmeryStation East, where JBEI is located, was presented as the hub of clean energy and a key space for research in in life, physical and nano sciences. Read more about the Future Cities Collaborative US tour.