Biosciences News

In the journal Cell, scientists from a team led by researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel, the National Center for Biotechnology Information, and the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) describe a computational pipeline that can specifically scan for RNA virus sequences.

Biosciences researchers are among the recipients of four new DOE awards. Two awards will focus on reducing carbon emissions while producing bioenergy. The other two are aimed at understanding the role of microbiomes in the biogeochemical cycling of elements like carbon.

The effects of a stomach flu can range from pesky to deadly. Researchers recently used an AI program to predict the structure of a common rotavirus and collaborated with a Biosciences researcher working at the Advanced Light Source to validate their novel finding.

PARP1 is an enzyme that senses DNA damage and sends a cellular signal to carry out repair. It has been found to be upregulated in several carcinomas and inhibiting its activity has been shown to repress tumor growth and metastasis. PARP1 has also emerged as a promising therapeutic target for Alzheimer and Parkinson diseases, where attenuating the enzyme’s hyperactivity can help cells survive. To better understand the regions of PARP1 that various inhibitors attack, an international team of researchers captured the first snapshot of the enzyme in the active state it adopts after detecting DNA damage.

Advances in cryogenic electron microscopy have enabled an international team of experts to visualize the structure of a cyanobacterial phycobilisome with nearly atomic resolution. The work, a collaboration among researchers at Michigan State University, UC Berkeley, Berkeley Lab, and the University of South Bohemia in the Czech Republic, was published in Nature. Knowing the position of different proteins and pigments helps scientist better understand this natural process and can inspire future applications in areas such as renewable energy and environmental remediation.