“[H]aving access to the capabilities at the DOE JGI and EMSL ‘proved to be a powerful tool in exploring the molecular mechanisms of carbon degradation by soil microbes.’”

In a Plos ONE study, a team led by researchers at Harvard University and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) conducted a comparative analysis of the secretomes of four recently-isolated and sequenced filamentous Ascomycete fungi to learn more about the variety of pathways they deploy to break down carbon compounds. The team’s study was made possible by a partnership between the two national user facilities called Facilities Integrating Collaborations for User Science or FICUS. The partnership allows scientists around the world to draw on capabilities at both SC user facilities to get a more complete understanding of fundamental scientific questions. Read more on the DOE JGI website.

“One of the biggest problems in the exploration of microbial dark matter is that so far, it is very complicated to determine when uncultured microbes are metabolically active and what their ecological function in a system is.”

In a study published online June 28, 2016 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), a DOE Office of Science User Facility, utilized a recently refined technique to identify both individual active cells, and single clusters of active bacteria and archaea within microbial communities. Understanding the true scope of the planet’s microbial diversity is of interest to the DOE in order to learn how they can be harnessed for a wide range of energy and environmental challenges. Read more on the DOE JGI website.