The Director’s Distinguished Women in Science Speaker Series at Berkeley Lab kicked off on Monday, November 20, with Jennifer Doudna, a faculty scientist in the Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division, interviewed by NPR science correspondent Joe Palca. Doudna and Palca began the conversation by highlighting a common connection: They are both graduates of Pomona College in Southern California. From there, they covered a lot of ground, providing a vivid backdrop for the answer to the most pressing question of the day: How did Doudna discover the CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing tool?
Detailed View of Immune Proteins Could Lead to New Pathogen-Defense Strategies
Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley biologists used cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) to resolve the structure of a protein complex, called an inflammasome, that is assembled within cells in response to incursion by a pathogen and functions as a beacon to summon immune system support. Inflammasome assembly is initiated when a protein called NAIP5 latches onto a flagellin molecule—a piece of the whiplike tail used by bacteria to propel themselves. Then several copies of another protein, NLRC4, join in to form the ring-shaped protein cluster. The researchers, led by Eva Nogales in Biosciences’ Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division and Russell Vance in the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology at UCB, found that flagellin is in contact with six different parts of NAIP5. They further demonstrated that the multiple contact sites help prevent bacteria with minor mutations from eluding detection. The study was published in the journal Science. Read more in the Berkeley Lab News Center.
A Smartphone-based Microscope for Treating River Blindness
LoaScope, the latest iteration of the CellScope technology developed in the lab of Daniel Fletcher, turns the camera of a mobile device into a microscope and automatically detects and quantifies infection by parasitic worms in a drop of blood. One such parasite, Onchocerca volvulus, is endemic to Africa and can lead to blindness in infected individuals. Treatment with the drug ivermectin is complicated because co-infection by another parasitic worm, the Loa loa, can cause fatal side effects. Expanding on a successful pilot study, the LoaScope was used to analyze the blood of patients in Cameroon, enabling doctors to treat more than 15,000 people with ivermectin without serious complications. Fletcher, a faculty scientist in Biological Systems and Engineering (BSE) and chair of the UC Berkeley Department of Bioengineering, is a coauthor on the report published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Read more from UC Berkeley News.
CRISPR Target Recognition Mechanism Illuminated Using Data From ALS
Using diffraction data obtained at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source (ALS) and at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), researchers in Biosciences’ Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) division and at UC Berkeley have discovered how CRISPR-associated (Cas) proteins are able to recognize their target locations with such great specificity. X-ray crystallography was used to solve the structures of Cas1 and Cas2—responsible for DNA-snippet capture and integration—as they were bound to synthesized DNA strands designed to mimic different stages of the process. The resulting structures show how the system works in its native context as part of a bacterial immune system, and also inform the development of the CRISPR-Cas system as a general-purpose molecular recording device. Jun-Jie Liu, a joint postdoc in the labs of Jennifer Doudna and Eva Nogales, and Addison Wright, a graduate student in Doudna’s lab, were co-first authors on the paper, published in the journal Science. Read more in this ALS Science Highlight.
JGI Announces 2018 Community Science Program Portfolio
Among the 30 proposals selected for the 2018 Community Science Program (CSP) of the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) is one by Jillian Banfield, a UC Berkeley professor and Berkeley Lab faculty scientist affiliated with the Environmental Genomics & System Biology (EGSB) Division. Banfield will study the impact of soil microbial communities along the East River in Colorado on the quality of water leaving the watershed. The research is part of a major DOE project to investigate how terrestrial systems respond to perturbations such as droughts, floods, and early snowmelt. The full list of accepted proposals can be viewed here.
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