Biosciences News

A biophysicist who dedicated his professional career to understanding the human health risks of heavy-ion exposures—such as the galactic cosmic rays encountered by space explorers—Stanley (Stan) Curtis helped write the book governing permissible radiation doses for U.S. astronauts. He was a researcher in Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division for almost three decades prior to retiring in 1993. Curtis passed away at his home on Bainbridge Island, Wash., in February of this year. He was 92.

Biosciences Area Senior Faculty Researcher Jay Keasling and his research team have spent the past few decades engineering yeast to be tiny factories that more efficiently produce molecules that are typically found in small supply in nature. Now, they have modified yeast to make the adjuvant QS-21, an important additive to vaccines that stimulates the … Read more »

Abby Dernburg, a senior faculty scientist in the Biological Systems and Engineering (BSE) Division, has been elected into the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in recognition of her distinguished and continuing achievements in meiosis research.

The DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) has released its newest 5-Year Strategic Plan: Innovating Genomics to Serve the Changing Planet. Aside from aligning the DOE Office of Science user facility with broader national efforts to promote and stimulate a bioeconomy, it lays out how users and the global research community will bridge fundamental knowledge gaps to advance biotechnology and biomanufacturing.

Researchers have studied both sides of plant-fungi symbiosis in one of the first cross-kingdom spatially-resolved transcriptomics studies to date.