Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division Director Paul Adams has announced a number of changes in the Division leadership, effective October 1. Earlier this summer, Corie Ralston agreed to serve as the Interim Director of the Molecular Foundry’s Biological Nanostructures Facility. She will step down as MBIB Division Deputy and remain as the Head of the Berkeley Center for Structural Biology (BCSB) at the Advanced Light Source (ALS).
Superfacility Framework Advances Photosynthesis Research
An article published in the Computing Sciences News Center describes how Biosciences researchers are using a superfacility framework of experimental instrumentation with computational and data facilities to unravel the long-standing mystery of how Photosystem (PSII) works. The protein complex plays a crucial role in photosynthesis, making it key to achieving artificial photosynthesis that could produce fuels using sunlight and carbon dioxide. Researchers—led by Vittal Yachandra, Junko Yano, and Jan Kern in Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB)—recently began using ESnet to enable real-time processing of experimental data collected at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at NERSC to observe this water-splitting protein in action. Asmit Bhowmick, a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of MBIB senior scientist Nicholas Sauter, is quoted in the article.
New Molecular Blueprint Advances Our Understanding of Photosynthesis
Researchers in the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division have used a state-of-the-art cryo-transmission electron microscope to reveal the structure of a large protein complex crucial to photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert sunlight into cellular energy.
Scientists Capture Photosynthesis in Unprecedented Detail
Using the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser, an international collaboration led by scientists at Berkeley Lab and SLAC captured the all four stable oxidation states of photosystem II— plus two transitional states—at natural temperature and the highest resolution to date.
A Surprise Just Beneath the Surface in Carbon Dioxide Experiment
Research co-led by Berkeley Lab researchers Junko Yano (MBIB) and Ethan Crumlin at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), with collaborators at Caltech’s Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP), has revealed a surprising driver of a chemical process to reformulate carbon dioxide into more useful compounds. X-ray experiments coupled with theoretical models showed that oxygen atoms near the surface of a copper sample had a more dramatic effect on the early stages of a reaction with carbon dioxide than earlier theories could account for. This work could help make reactions more efficient in converting carbon dioxide into liquid fuels and other products. Read more in the News Center release.
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