Jenny Mortimer, Deputy Vice President of the Feedstocks Division at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) and Research Scientist with the Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology (EGSB) Division collaborated with a team of international researchers headed by scientists from the University of Tübingen to decipher the workings of the Cytolysin toxin, which is produced by some of the world’s most devastating crop diseases. The study shows that the Cytolysin binds to a class of glycosylated sphingolipid that Mortimer’s group studies. By producing plants which have modified forms of the sphingolipid, the toxin binding specificity could be determined. The study was published in Science today, December 14, and its findings may lead to ways of better protecting crops from such pathogens in the future. Read the Science news article about the study.
Mortimer participates at WEF’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions
Jenny Mortimer, Deputy Vice President of the Feedstocks Division at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) and Scientist with the Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology (EGSB) Division, participated at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 2017 Annual Meeting of the New Champions alongside business and political leaders. The annual meeting whose overall theme this year was inclusive growth in the fourth industrial revolution took place from June 27-29 in Dalian, China. At the meeting Mortimer participated at a press conference entitled “Young, talented and fighting for science” which can be viewed here.
JBEI’s Vy Ngo Awarded Grace Fimognari Memorial Prize
Vy Ngo, student assistant with JBEI ’s Feedstocks Division, part of the Biological Systems and Engineering (BSE) Division was awarded the Grace Fimognari Memorial Prize during UC Berkeley’s Molecular & Cell Biology (MCB) 2017 Commencement. The Prize established in 1969 is awarded to outstanding graduating senior in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BMB) emphasis of the MCB major. Ngo was mentored by Jenny Mortimer, JBEI’s Director of Plant Systems Biology, initially through Berkeley Lab’s Community College Internship (CCI) program in 2015 and then completed the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) program in 2016. She continued to intern at JBEI as she transitioned to UC Berkeley.
Davies and Mortimer at WEF’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions
Karen Davies, staff scientist in the Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging Division, and Jenny Mortimer, Director of Plant Systems Biology at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), were two of 50 extraordinary scientists under the age of 40 who were selected to participate alongside business and political leaders in the World Economic Forum’s 2016 Annual Meeting of the New Champions, which took place from June 26-28 in Tianjin, China.
To learn more about their experience joining a community of more than 1500 meeting participants from 90 countries, the Biosciences Communications Team asked them to answer a few questions about their participation and to shed some light on what is said to be “a true global experience addressing today’s unprecedented set of intertwined global challenges – economic, political, societal and environmental.”
Two Bioscientists Selected for World Economic Forum Honor
Karen Davies, staff scientist in the Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging Division, and Jenny Mortimer, Director of Plant Systems Biology at the Joint BioEnergy Institute, are two of 50 extraordinary scientists under the age of 40 who have been selected to participate alongside business and political leaders in the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions, which is taking place from June 26-28 in Tianjin, China.
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