Biosciences Area scientist, Deepika Awasthi has a big idea to capture two major greenhouse gases while producing a useful biochemical, by engineering a microbe to do the work.
Microbes to the Rescue
A team of researchers from the Biosciences Area at Berkeley Lab and the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom found one particular organism in the fly’s microbiome that helps protect it from atrazine, an herbicide toxic to flies that is commonly used in agriculture. This method of rescuing fruit flies from atrazine poisoning with probiotics may be useful for protecting pollinators in agriculture.
Biosciences Area FY21 LDRD Projects
The projects of 15 Biosciences Area scientists and engineers received funding through the FY21 Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program.
Biosciences Area 2020 LDRD Projects
The projects of 14 Biosciences Area scientists and engineers received funding through the FY20 Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program. The funded projects span a diverse array of topics and approaches including: developing closed-loop plastics from biogenic feedstocks; reimagining a root system optimized for plant-microbe interactions; and creating computational tools for extracting macromolecular conformational dynamics. Lab-wide, 96 projects were selected from a field of 168 proposals. Biosciences Area efforts account for 18.5 percent of the $23 million allocated.
Biosciences Area FY19 LDRD Projects
The projects of 13 Biosciences Area scientists and engineers received funding through the FY19 Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program. The funded projects span a diverse array of topics and approaches including the harnessing of microbiome data to uncover patterns of mutualism, evaluating radiobiological effects of laser-accelerated ion beams, improving bioenergy yield under drought stress, and the application of machine learning in tomogram segmentation. Lab-wide, 89 projects were selected from a field of 158 proposals. Biosciences Area efforts account for 15.07 percent of the $22.2 million allocated.
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