Biosciences News

Two senior scientists in the Biosciences Area, Jian-Hua Mao and Trent Northen, are newly named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Cheryl Kerfeld’s laboratory, which operates at both Michigan State University and Berkeley Lab, teamed up with researchers at Pennsylvania State University and the University of Delaware to take a first step toward creating artificial cells that lack a lipid membrane.

Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants. Exploring sugarcane’s genetic code could help researchers develop more resilient and productive crops, with implications for both sugar production and biofuels

Judith (Judy) Campisi, a leader in the field of cell senescence and a researcher at Berkeley Lab for just over 30 years, died on January 19, 2024. She was 75.

Most organisms use oxygen to convert food into energy. However, in environments with little or no oxygen, life had found other ways to produce energy, using a process called fermentation. To better understand the range of bacteria and archaea that rely on this form of metabolism, researchers at UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara recently compiled a list of with more than 8,300 organisms from multiple sources, including the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and the DOE Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase). The researchers also built an interactive browser that allows other researchers to study the genomes and predict the metabolic abilities of microbes that are likely to thrive in environments with little or no oxygen.