Biosciences News

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has won seven 2015 R&D 100 awards. This year’s winners include two technologies developed by researchers in the Biosciences Area. Ben Bowen of the Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division and Oliver Rübel of the Computational Research Division led the development of OpenMSI, a new way to analyze and visualize mass spectrometry data. Seung-Wuk Lee of the Biological Systems and Engineering Division led the development of the Sensor Integrated with Recombinant and Engineered Nanophage (SIREN) platform. SIREN uses bio-nanofilms with tunable functionality to create portable devices for detecting small molecules of interest. Read more about these and the other five R&D 100 Awards won by Berkeley Lab at the News Center.

Berkeley Lab is pleased to honor fourteen “Women @ The Lab” this year. Women @ the Lab showcases some of Berkeley Lab’s talented and dedicated employees in STEM and Operations, and four of the fourteen are in the Biosciences Area. Helen Cademartori, Biosciences Area Operations Deputy; Sarah Richardson, Computational Biologist Postdoctoral Fellow at the Joint BioEnergy Institute, … Read more »

Berkeley Lab received $334 million and used the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds for such things as the demolition of the Bevatron, creating the BELLA advanced laser plasma accelerator, and establishing the Advanced Biofuels Process Demonstration Unit. The jobs created and retained by the Lab and its contractors totaled 2,017. Read more in … Read more »

A new study has identified genetic factors that influence motor performance and body weight in a genetically diverse group of mice. The Lab researchers also found the genes identified in the mice overlap significantly with genes related to neurological disorders and obesity in people. Jian-Hua Mao and Antoine Snijders in the Biological Systems and Engineering Division led the Biosciences research team, which included colleagues in their division (Sasha Langley, Yurong Huang, Michael Hang, Kristofer Bouchard, and Gary Karpen) and the Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division (Susan Celniker and Ben Brown). Read more at the Berkeley Lab News Center.

As the nation observed Veterans Day, a time to honor and remember those who have served our country in the armed forces, four Lab veterans described their experiences. Among those were Erika Lindquist of the Joint Genome Institute (pictured) and Nick Everson from the Emery Station Operations Center and Joint BioEnergy Institute. Read more and watch … Read more »