Biosciences News

Congratulations to JGI research scientist Simon Roux, who is among the Berkeley Lab scientists awarded significant funding for research through the DOE Office of Science Early Career Research Program (ECRP). A total of 76 ERCP recipients were selected this year. The scientists are each expected to receive grants of up to $2.5 million over five years to cover salary and research expenses.

Four Berkeley Lab projects were awarded $1 million from the DOE’s Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) to further collaborative research with industry partners on biofuels, bioproducts, energy microgrid technology, and renewable energy technology. Two projects from the Biosciences Area were awarded funding for research to enable rapid strain engineering for the production of biofuels and bioproducts from low-cost gas feedstock, and produce a new aviation biofuel precursor from cellulosic biomass

As Joint Genome Institute (JGI) Director Nigel Mouncey and Biological Systems and Engineering (BSE) Division Director Blake Simmons shared in their June 4 emails, Nick Everson will rejoin the JGI as Deputy for Operations starting on July 1. He will succeed Ray Turner, who will retire from Berkeley Lab on June 29.

An international team led by researchers in Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division has revealed a key step in the molecular mechanism behind the water splitting reaction of photosynthesis. The finding could help inform the design of renewable energy technology.

Three projects, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), leverage Berkeley Lab’s strengths in artificial intelligence, sensors, and ecological biology to make agriculture more sustainable and more profitable. They aim to quantify and reduce the carbon intensity of agriculture—including the farming of biofuel feedstocks such as corn, soy, and sorghum—while also increasing yield. Two of the new projects are part of the SMARTFARM program of DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). This initiative aspires to make the biofuel supply chain carbon negative, which would greatly improve biofuel’s benefits to the broader economy and environment.