Biosciences Area

Finding Diamonds in the Rough

New crystallography finding by JBEI and GLBRC benefits bioenergy industry 

nov1During the kraft process used to convert wood into wood pulp, the structural material lignin is partially converted into molecules like stilbene. Stilbenes are also naturally occurring in plants and some bacteria, and may play a role in plant pathogen resistance.

Currently, the deconstruction of plant biomass into cellulose and lignin is an expensive process. Lignin accounts for about 30 percent of plant cell wall carbon, and its conversion into chemicals or fuels could have a significant positive impact on the economics of processing lignocellulosic biomass. Enzymes capable of producing useful compounds from the breakdown of stilbenes and similar molecules could be employed for this. Collaborators from two of the Department of Energy Bioenergy Research Centers now have gained first-hand insight into how a stilbene cleaving oxygenase (SCO) carries out this unusual chemical reaction.

JBEI’s Henrik Scheller Awarded 2016 Kaj Linderstrøm-Lang Prize

The award acknowledges JBEI’s VP of Feedstocks for his achievements in enzyme identification and characterization involved in synthesis and modification of the plant cell wall.

Carlsberg Foundation and the Carlsberg Research Laboratory hosted its annual awards celebration on November 29. A record number of four awards were handed out this year to commemorate the Laboratory’s 140th anniversary. The Carlsberg Forum series reflects the strong link between science and business. Each year, the Kaj Linderstrøm-Lang awards are given to prominent scientists for their achievements within biochemistry or physiology, the fields of science in which Kaj Linderstrøm-Lang, a professor at Carlsberg Research Laboratory in the period 1939-1959, distinguished himself as a pioneer.

This year, Professor Henrik V. Scheller, Vice President of Feedstocks at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (Berkeley Lab) and Professor Geoff Fincher, School of Agriculture, Food & Wine, The University of Adelaide, Australia received this year’s Kaj Linderstrøm-Lang Prize as an acknowledgement of their outstanding achievements on identifying and characterizing enzymes involved in synthesis and modification of the plant cell wall. The prize is a plated gold medal and a financial personal award of DKK 40.000.

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Second Annual Software Developer Wet Lab Boot Camp Takes Place at JBEI

The training was targeted at Biosciences Area’s Software Developers

2016-11-09-12-19-45JBEI hosted for a second year a wet lab boot camp targeted at software developers. Following last year’s success, the boot camp returned this time to include 10 software developers from across the Biosciences Area. It included participants from JBEI (Biological Systems & Engineering Division), Agile BioFoundry, DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and Berkeley Lab and Sandia National Lab departments.

JBEI Volunteers at Bay Area Science Festival

raphael-and-sarahFor a second year, JBEI collaborated with the Bay Area Science Festival, the largest science education event in the Bay Area. JBEI organized on October 27 an Explorer Day for the public which included a tour of its labs, and on November 5 JBEI’s volunteers participated at BASF’s closing event, the Discovery Day at AT&T Park. JBEI organized a number of activities to help raise awareness about the benefits of biofuels. Read more on the JBEI website.

New Plant Synbio Tool Breaks With Tradition

loque-image-squareResearchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) in collaboration with Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Genomics & Systems Biology Division and the DOE Joint Genome Institute developed a versatile system (named jStack) which utilizes yeast homologous recombination to efficiently assemble DNA into plant transformation vectors. The new approach will impact plant engineering for the bioenergy, agricultural and pharmaceutical industries.

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